Inzi vows to keep England under pressure in final Test

LAHORE—Confident Pakistan skipper Inzamam has said that they would go for adopting attacking strategy to win the third Test of the ongoing Pak-England Series by hinting that Asim will replace Younis at No.3.
Izamam was looking too reluctant to include pacer Muhammad Asif in the fast bowling rank and it is expected that they would field old guns Shoaib Akhtar, Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan and Muhammad Sami while after a ban on Shahid Afridi, young Hasan will also be part of the side for Tuesday clash.
Inzamam expressed these views during a well-attended press conference held at PCB premises at Qaddafi Stadium, the venue of third and final Test of the three-Test matches Series, starting today.
About the absence of Pakistan’s vice captain Younis Khan, he said that he (Younis) was the main batsman and certainly his exclusion, due to his brother’s tragic death, would have some effect on the team as well but the overall combination will be fine and there will be no further worries.
He said that they would go for winning the third Test and naturally one should adopt attacking strategy if he wants to go for victory. “We have set our mind according to the present circumstances and there will be no pressure as far as absence of players like Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi, Shabbir is concerned.”
He predicted good result. Shahid was also replated by another batsman Hasan Raza, he said. About he Looking after the condition of the pitch, it would help the batsmen and that we are going for another batsman in place of Shahid. But the track was not only to help the batsmen rather it would also help the bowlers and on the day-4 and day-5, there will be turn for the spinners as well, Inzi explained.
It was a good track for the Test match and I hope the people would enjoy in the same manner as they had in Multan and Faisalabad, Inzi said. He said in clear terms that he would go for batting if we win the toss. “We have in mind to win the toss and piled up good total for England to chase,” he replied to a question.
About his own performance, he said, he would try more to give the same performance he had set up earlier on the same pitch. The last match was played here between Pakistan and India in 2003-04 which was won by Pakistan while currently Pakistan skipper Inzamam is so far the highest score who made 329 runs against New Zealand Ist Test in 2002.
He said that the weather condition was so alarming and as predictions were made about the fog and rain by the met office, it would worry me because the match will be going to start at 10.00 a.m because of the availability of floodlights. But in cas of fog, the floodlights would not work that much and it was going to be difficult for the game to continue at its fixed schedule.
Inzamam-ul-Haq, who will play his 105th Test already having a total of 7,955 Test runs, said that as batsman he learned more from batting legend Javed Miandad and still he is getting tips from him. “He was a great batsman and he guided me a lot during my cricketing career.”
With his 24th century in the second Test against England at Faisalabad, Inzamamul Haq got past the 23 100s scored by former captain Javed Miandad. However, Javed Miandad still basks in the glory of being all-time highest run-maker for the country with his tally of 8,832 Test runs.
Inzamam, who hit a century in each innings of Faisalabad Test and has 7,955 runs to his credit, said that he would do his level best to add more Test 100s.
Inzie is still 838 runs away to overtake Javed Miandad of becoming the batsman with most runs in Pakistan’s Test history though he has played 104 Tests and Javed played 124 Tests. Javed Miandad ended up with an average of 52.57 while Inzamamul Haq boasts a current run-rate of 51.32.
Pakistan skipper Inzamam lauded the performance of the bowlers during the last two Tests and hoped that they would help the team win in the important fixture to enable the team to record Series victory after lapse of 2 years. Pakistan had recorded Series win against New Zealand in the home Series in 2002.—Agencies