Karachi, May 5: Pakistan Twenty20 captain Shahid Afridi has held the team’s poor fielding and batting display responsible for the massive 34-run defeat against Australia in the ICC World T20 Championship and rued that certain plans did not work to perfection.
 Afridi said fielders dropped too many catches, which changed the result of the match.
 “Our plans didn’t work out as we had expected and our fielding and batting effort was disappointing,” Afridi said.
 “Sometimes it is not necessary that all your plans will work to your need. Sometimes things do go wrong because this is the beauty of sports. Team has learnt from its mistakes,” he said.
 Defeat has now left Pakistan awaiting the result of the Australia and Bangladesh league phase encounter on Wednesday to find out whether they progress to the Super Eight stage or not.
 However, Afridi sounded optimistic about his team’s chances and said they will make every effort to successfully defend the title.
 “I am still pretty confident that we will qualify for the super eight and once we do that I will sit down with the coach and go back to the drawing board and design a new strategy and approach for the team,” the flamboyant all-rounder said.
 If Pakistan qualify for the super eight, they will lock horns with South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies.
 Afridi also admitted that the move to use Muhammad Hafeez as a new ball bowler didn’t work out as also the thought to bring on experienced all-rounder Abdul Razzaq in the attack.
 “But the situation changed so rapidly that I could not do much,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 5 May 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 5 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 6 May 2010 00:00:00 IST