Kolkatta, March 13, 2016:
- Having arrived in Kolkatta late Saturday evening (around 09:15 p.m. at Team Hotel within an hour of its landing in the city via Abu Dhabi from a journey that had commenced 20 hours hence, around midnight at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal Airport), Team Pakistan had a full three-and-a-half-hour training session overnight.
- The training session comprised warm-up exercises, which started up with a brief soccer stint, followed by batting, bowling (split in at the three nets as well as one-stump variation) as well as multiple fielding routines in several groups.
- At the fag-end of the training session, skipper Shahid Afridi attended the well-attended on-arrival press conference which is mandatory in all ICC events, with three of his charges (Shoaib Malik, Sarfraz Ahmed and Wahab Riaz – in that order) also attended media sessions, answering questions of a large number of media present on the occasion.
- The entire team is unfazed, taking the stringent security measures in its stride, and is fit and raring to make an impact on this all-important ICC world event in the newest format of the game.
On March 14, 2016, Team Pakistan shall meet its remaining pre-tournament compulsory ICC media and Anti-Corruption Unit obligations in the first part of the day, from morning to noon, before taking on Sri Lanka in its only practice game at the Eden Gardens at 15:00 hours before the commencement of the event proper on the same iconic venue on March 16 against the Qualifier, before the high-voltage encounter against India on March 19.