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The coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Intikhab Alam, has said that he is rather pleased with his team's preparation for the ICC World T20 and thinks that Pakistan has a good chance at winning the tournament. He said that despite the ups and downs in this latest format of the game, he backed his team to do really well in the tournament.
Alam was particularly happy about the entire process, where his team underwent a conditioning camp and three warm-up games after participating in the domestic T20 tournament, the RBS Cup. Incidentally, Sialkot Stallions went on to win the tournament, and former ICL-discards Imran Nazir and Abdul Razzaq made their comebacks count by scoring the maximum runs and capturing the most number of wickets in the tournament respectively.
Alam was also thrilled with sports psychologist, Maqbool Babri's interaction with his boys, especially because he stressed on the need to play well as a team rather than for individual glory. Alam said, "Whether it's a Test match, one-day or Twenty20 international, the sports psychologist has impressed upon the guys that cricket is a team game and not about individuals."
There were mixed news for Alam in terms of players fitness though, as his controversial, but ace pace-man, Shoaib Akhtar was earlier declared unfit and dropped out of the squad, but Misbah-ul-Haq has been cleared of his groin injury and will participate in the tournament. Akhtar had been diagnosed as suffering from genital warts and will be replaced by Rao Anjum.
Misbah was Pakistan's best batsman in the 2007 edition of the ICC World T20, and had brought them back in both the games that Pakistan played against India. However, India had managed to stay calm under pressure and win the games; one of them being that epic finals of the tournament.
Pakistan's team manager said that the Misbah injury wasn't serious and he could have made an appearance in the RBS cup, but the team decided not to aggravate the injury.
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