Canada captain Saad bin Zafar is looking to put pressure on Pakistan in their third match of the T20 World Cup 2024 in New York as “anything is possible”.
Canada have one win from two matches as they made an excellent comeback against Ireland in New York after losing to the United States (USA) and their skipper is eager to continue the good form to remain alive in their pursuit of the World Cup Super 8.
On the other hand, Pakistan have two losses from two matches as they failed to chase the 120-run target against India on Sunday after losing to the USA in their first match of the tournament. A loss on Tuesday would eliminate them from the tournament.
Talking ahead of their match against Pakistan, Saad stated that everyone in the Canadian camp is in a good mood as their last match against Ireland went “really well”.
"Everybody's in a positive mood. Our last game went really well," said Saad as quoted by The Canadian Press. "It instilled a belief in us that if we play good cricket on the day, we can take down any opponent.”
He admitted that Pakistan is a good team but their recent form hasn’t been good which they will try to exploit by putting some pressure early in the match.
"I know that we are coming up against quite a high-ranked and well-experienced team in Pakistan but the reality is lately they haven't been playing the good brand of cricket that they're known for," he added.
"They are under the pump. They have lost two games. So, if we're able to play good cricket on the day and we're able to put some good pressure early on in the game, anything is possible."
Squads
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Saim Ayub, Mohammad Rizwan, Azam Khan, Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Usman Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Amir, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf.
Canada: Saad Bin Zafar (c), Aaron Johnson, Dillon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nicholas Kirton, Pargat Singh, Ravinderpal Singh, Rayyankhan Pathan and Shreyas Movva.
Reserves: Tajinder Singh, Aaditya Varadharajan, Ammar Khalid, Jatinder Matharu and Parveen Kumar.