Pakistan eye T20I series whitewash over Bangladesh

Monitoring Desk

LAHORE: Pakistan are eying a Twenty20 International (T20I) series whitewash over Bangladesh after winning the first two encounters of the three-match series in convincing manner.  

Skipper Babar Azam and senior batsman Mohammad Hafeez stroked masterful half-centuries to steer Pakistan to a nine-wicket win over a hapless Bangladesh in the second T20I in Lahore on Saturday.

Earlier in the first T20I, recalled Shoaib Malik smashed a solid half-century to anchor Pakistan’s five-wicket win over the visiting side on Friday. The home side would be looking to continue their good run of form during the third and final match of the series, at the same venue, on Monday, January 27. 

Pakistan skipper Babar put the victory down to “team work”. “Credit for my captaincy goes to the players,” said Babar, who now has two wins in five matches as captain.

“The seniors and bowlers make it easy for me. The series win was much-needed, we played a lot of youngsters, the idea was to increase our talent pool to give us more options going into the World Cup,” he added while talking about the importance of winning the series. The Pakistan captain also hinted at changes for the next match although he refrained from shedding light on the expected team combination.

“We will try to win the series 3-0 and whitewash them, even if we give other players chances in the last match,” he said. “We haven’t discussed the team combination for the last match.” “We don’t give targets to anyone that you will be dropped if you don’t play in a certain number of matches. You are given a proper number of chances, if you don’t perform then you can be dropped and we try other players. But we do try and give proper chances to everyone,” he added.

The prolific right-hander also spoke about the T20 World Cup, later this year, and the importance of assembling a good squad for the event. “I am thinking about the T20 World Cup, I have been appointed captain so I have the responsibility. We have PSL after this and after that, we will get a good group of players together. When we go for the World Cup, I think we’ll have good backup that we can play a good team,” he said.

Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah admitted that defeats were disappointing but was keen on winning the last match of the series. “Definitely, disappointed to lose,” said the Bangladesh skipper. “Not sure yet how we’ll go for the last game, maybe we’ll try to play some reserves, but we need to come hard at them and win the game.”