<\/p>\n
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam on Tuesday said he was excited for the October 14 World Cup clash with arch-rival and hosts India in Ahmedabad and vowed to perform his best.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited to play in Ahmedabad. It is the biggest stadium in the world and will be jam-packed for the India-Pakistan clash,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The national squad is set to depart for India for the tournament tomorrow. The team is due to travel to Dubai from Lahore before flying to Hyderabad, India, to play two warm-up matches \u2014 against New Zealand on Sept 29 and Australia on Oct 3.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s World Cup campaign will officially kick off in Hyderabad on October 6 against The Netherlands. Their second match will be against Sri Lanka at the same venue on Oct 10.<\/p>\n
The national side\u2019s third fixture will be the high-octane encounter against arch-rivals India at Ahmedabad on October 14 before they go on to play Australia next and the remaining matches against other sides, ending their league stage with the game against England in Kolkata on November 12.<\/p>\n
During a press conference in Lahore today, Babar said the team\u2019s morale was high and appealed to the nation to pray for them.<\/p>\n
In response to a question, the skipper admitted that Pakistan\u2019s performance during two key Asia Cup matches were \u201cnot the best\u201d. However, he said the team had learnt from its mistakes and would \u201cgive its best\u201d during the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will go, see the conditions and will opt for a combination that is best for the team,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about my performance. I always try to perform in a manner that suits the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we have not played in India before, we are not taking too much pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Babar maintained that the squad was focused on winning all the nine matches and eventually picking up the trophy.<\/p>\n
Questioned about the performance of spinners in the squad, Babar said, \u201cNo player is ordinary \u2026 it is very difficult to play in the Pakistan team, that only happens with performance and their performance is good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will do good in the World Cup as well,\u201d the skipper added.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam on Tuesday said he was excited for the October 14 World Cup clash with arch-rival and hosts India in Ahmedabad and vowed to perform his best. \u201cI\u2019m very excited to play in Ahmedabad. It is the biggest stadium in the world and will be jam-packed for the India-Pakistan clash,\u201d he said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8004,"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\/09\/2614154979bf0f7.jpg?r=145123","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8003","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=8003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}