September 21 Saturday 2002
Waqar hopes to rise from the ashes against Netherlands

COLOMBO: Pakistan captain Waqar Younis hopes Saturday's (today's) ICC Champions Trophy match with the Netherlands could be a much-needed turning point in his side's fortunes.

Pakistan are already out of the tournament after losing to Sri Lanka on September 12 and they are also without a coach after Mudassar Nazar was sacked on Tuesday following a run of just three wins from the last 10 matches. On top of those problems Pakistan have only 12 fit players, with key batsmen Inzamam-ul-Haq and Yousuf Youhana both facing surgery to cure long-term injuries.

But Waqar believes that out of adversity his players can rise again, starting with the game against the Dutch. 

"We've only got 12 to pick from, so it is the turn of the youngsters," Waqar said on Friday. "They have got the opportunity now and we won't be taking it easy. We'll give it the best we've got to get back on to the winning streak and this might be the turning point for us."

Waqar is convinced Pakistan's current poor form is just a temporary blip on the graph rather than a terminal decline. "I take it as a bad patch. I've had lots of bad patches in my bowling career, so it's one of those patches that you go through. You can't win all the games and fair enough we've lost too many.

"But we're still a lot better side than most of the sides in the world and I don't think people should underestimate us. Things will get better."

Form and fitness have not been the only issues on the agenda for Pakistan since their eight-wicket loss to Sri Lanka. The quality of their performance in that match was also the subject of speculation when it was revealed the ICC's Anti-corruption Unit were reviewing incidents during the game.

"I don't know why it's all been made up," said Waqar. "Maybe there's too much media here, journalists coming up with different stuff from different people, there are so many mouths and stuff comes out.

"There's nothing to it, it's just media hype, that's all."

Waqar highlighted the persistent failure of his top-order batsmen to make big scores as the root of the problem and he is keen to see that put right today. "The top-order has just not been getting runs and we've been losing wickets in the first 15 overs," he said. "That's what I always say at the meetings and I say it so often people laugh at me now, but it's all we can do. If we can lose only a minimum number of wickets in the first 15 overs we can take on the game from there."

Like Pakistan, the Netherlands have had top-order problems of their own, bowled out for just 86 as they went down by 206 runs to Sri Lanka on Monday. They have responded by dropping batsmen Robert Oosterom and Jacob-Jan Esmeijer and replacing them with Feiko Kloppenburg and Henk-Jan Mol. Nick Statham is the other player from their 14-man squad omitted.

Neither side can win the Champions Trophy but, like Waqar, Dutch captain Roland Lefebvre still sees today's match as a valuable exercise for his part-timers ahead of next year's World Cup in southern Africa. "We don't play many One-day Internationals so we want to play as many as we can," he said. "We are after similar standards to those we achieved against Sri Lanka as well as trying to improve our batting. It would be a setback if we don't achieve that aim."

Pakistan (from): Waqar Younis (capt), Abdur Razzaq, Imran Nazir, Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammed Sami, Rashid Latif, Saeed Anwar, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Shoaib Malik, Wasim Akram, Younis Khan.

Netherlands (from): Roland Lefebvre (capt), Daan van Bunge, Victor Grandia, Feiko Kloppenburg, Tim de Leede, Henk-Jan Mol, Adeel Raja, Edgar Schiferli, Reinout Scholte, Luuk van Troost, Bas Zuiderent.

Umpires: David Orchard & Rudi Koertzen. 
TV umpire: Daryl Harper. 
ICC match referee: Clive Lloyd (WI).