Colombo: Waqar Younis is glad that Pakistan is not at the centre of the spot-fixing speculation that has hit the World Cup but the coach wants an end to the stories as he feels the games at the mega-event have been “pretty fair”.
“It feels great, but let’s not talk about it. I think the games have been pretty fair, the entire tournament has been pretty clean, if you ask me,” said Waqar when asked how he felt given Pakistan’s name has not cropped up in the recent stories. “The teams who are better have won games and I think it’s pretty clean. People talk about these things because nowadays it is on. I’m glad Pakistan is not in it, so good for us,” he added.
The ongoing World Cup, being jointly hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, was hit by speculation of spot-fixing after a Lankan TV anchor created a furore by claiming that Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Smaraweera may have deliberately “changed the game” by getting out cheaply in the 11-run loss to Pakistan in a group match.
A furious Sri Lanka Cricket refuted the allegations and condemned the channel. Reports that the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit was investigating the Australia-Zimbabwe match for slow batting by the defending champions’ openers also created a flutter. But the governing body was quick to dismiss the stories. Talking about tomorrow’s match against Canada, Waqar said Pakistan will take all its opposition teams seriously.
“Everyone knows the importance of the tournament, so I don’t think there is any easy match or that any match will be taken lightly,” said Waqar. “We played very well against Sri Lanka but it’s still early days. There are bigger teams ahead so we need to come out and importantly keep the momentum going,” said Waqar. Waqar once again asked the team to improve its fielding.
“When you compare our fielding with other teams, say like South Africa, Australia and England, we have a long way to go but I think we are getting there,” said the coach.
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