{"id":12545,"date":"2023-10-09T19:09:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T19:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/opener-fakhar-zaman-faces-world-cup-axe-as-pakistan-brace-for-sri-lanka-challenge\/"},"modified":"2023-10-09T19:09:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T19:09:06","slug":"opener-fakhar-zaman-faces-world-cup-axe-as-pakistan-brace-for-sri-lanka-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/opener-fakhar-zaman-faces-world-cup-axe-as-pakistan-brace-for-sri-lanka-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Opener Fakhar Zaman faces World Cup axe as Pakistan brace for Sri Lanka challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>Pakistan head coach Grant Bradburn insists his team\u2019s top-order batting is not a worry but that confidence may not spare Fakhar Zaman, the only man to have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1421343\">scored an ODI double hundred<\/a> for his country.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s openers have endured a miserable last five matches with just 35 as their highest partnership.<\/p>\n<p>There has only been one century stand in the 16 games this year.<\/p>\n<p>Left-hander Fakhar managed just 12 runs in a partnership of 15 with Imamul Haq in Pakistan\u2019s 81-run <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1779709\">win against the Netherlands<\/a> in Hyderabad on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Fakhar, who famously smashed 210 not out against Zimbabwe in 2018, has a best of just 33 in his last 11 innings, a desperate run which followed three successive centuries against New Zealand earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>For Tuesday\u2019s game with Sri Lanka, Fakhar is likely to make way for Abdullah Shafique who hit a half-century when the sides last met at the Asia Cup in September. Sri Lanka <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1775911\">won that game by two wickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bradburn still hopes the top-order clicks sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1779552\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cLook, we\u2019ve got full faith in our top order,\u201d said New Zealander Bradburn on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey will click at some stage and we\u2019re open and honest to say that we\u2019re not getting what we would like out of the powerplay as yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Number three and skipper Babar Azam, the world\u2019s top-ranked ODI batsman, also failed against the Netherlands with an 18-ball five.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe top three have scored the majority of our runs in the period before the World Cup,\u201d said Bradburn who praised Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSri Lanka are a team that we\u2019ve become familiar with over recent times and we know they have had the upper hand on us over the last year in white-ball cricket,\u201d said Bradburn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe respect the skills that Sri Lanka possess and we\u2019re really looking forward to taking them on tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Sri Lankan batting coach Naveed Nawaz urged his bowlers to remain positive despite conceding a record World Cup total of 428 against South Africa in their first match.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be batting-friendly pitches mostly so we\u2019ve got to look at the execution in the game against South Africa and how we could have done better,\u201d said Nawaz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe guys who got runs, especially Kusal (Mendis), Charith (Asalanka), maybe Dasun (Shanaka), had they gone for a little bit longer, maybe another extra 30, 40 runs by each one of them, that could have got us close.\u201d Mendis cracked eight sixes in his 76 while Asalanka scored 79 and skipper Shanaka 68 as Sri Lanka managed a fighting reply of 326.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Pakistan is quite a strong opposition,\u201d said Nawaz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been playing Pakistan recently, so both teams know quite well about each team\u2019s strengths, weaknesses. \u201c<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan head coach Grant Bradburn insists his team\u2019s top-order batting is not a worry but that confidence may not spare Fakhar Zaman, the only man to have scored an ODI double hundred for his country. Pakistan\u2019s openers have endured a miserable last five matches with just 35 as their highest partnership. There has only been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/0923355106775a5.jpg?r=233952","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}