HYDERABAD: It turned out to be a lull before the storm. The two-hour silence that followed Sri Lanka team's practice session at the Gymkhana Ground was broken by a police siren with an inspector from Begumpet Police Station, along with a few of his subordinates, turning up at the venue to take stock of the security arrangements on Monday afternoon.
The Pakistan team was still a couple of kilometres away from the facility but the cops and other security guards, who were stationed at the venue, sprung into action.
Babar Azam and Co were scheduled to train at the place from 2 pm to 5 pm but they were late by almost an hour. "How long are they supposed to train here? We have been told that the training will end at 5. It's already 3 pm, make sure they complete training as per schedule," were the first few words the inspector uttered while addressing the ground authorities present at the venue.
The Men in Green have been in the city since September 27 and had their net sessions behind closed doors at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Uppal. Given the match between New Zealand and Netherlands at the stadium on Monday, training sessions of both the Pakistan and Sri Lanka teams were moved to the Gymkhana Ground. They are scheduled to play against each other in the city on Tuesday.
The new venue on the busy General Choudhary Road and adjacent to Parade Ground, which hosted a political function on Sunday night, was bound to give tough times to the police as they restricted entry to the place. Journalists and photographers, who were allowed to cover Sri Lanka's training session in the morning after initial resistance, were eventually directed not to enter the seven nets where Pakistan players were supposed to train. Fortunately enough, they were allowed to stay at the main strip.
Apparently accustomed to the security cordon around them by now, Pakistan players wasted no time as they made it to the open ground along with their support staff.
Even as other players were stretching and doing routine warm-up exercises, skipper Babar headed straight to the main strip to take throwdowns. Of late, the right-hand batter has not been so effective with the bat as he used to be. In the 17 matches this year, he has scored 750 runs with two hundreds, one of which came against Nepal during the Asia Cup, at an average of 46.57, way below his career average of 57.59.
Though he scored 80 and 90 runs respectively in the two warm-up matches against New Zealand and Australia, he has failed to cross the 30-run mark in his last four innings. What's more worrying is the way he got dismissed in those innings. He was castled twice, stumped and caught once.
Fully aware of the fact that the challenge will only grow as the tournament progresses, the 28-year-old Lahore cricketer spent around 45 minutes at the main strip. The initial phase saw edges flying to slip cordon, point and gully but as he got in his groove, his trademark cover drives and straight drives down the ground became quite regular. Leggie Abrar Ahmed, who is one of the two travelling reserves in the squad, was bowling to him apart from throwdown specialists. He was seen playing quite a few conventional sweeps against Abrar.
Babar's deputy, Shadab Khan, was batting on the adjacent surface. His approach, however, was completely different from his skipper as he was mostly trying to clear boundary ropes. A local left-arm spinner was bowling at him with other throwdown specialists. The duo continued batting at full tilt even as other members shifted to the enclosed nets a few metres away from the main strip.
Premier pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi, wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan, openers Imam-ul-Haq and Fakar Zaman, all-rounders Mohammad Nawaz and Iftikhar Ahmed were not present.
PCB's Zaka speaks to Pak foreign secy, raises concerns
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) management committee chairman Zaka Ashraf has called upon Pakistan Foreign Secretary Syrus Sajjad Qazi on Monday and raised serious concerns over the delay in fans' and journalists' visas for India to cover the World Cup.
"The chairman also requested the Foreign Secretary to take up the issue with India's Home Ministry through the Pakistan High Commission Office in New Delhi. The PCB has also taken serious notice of security threats being reported in Indian media and requested the government to evaluate players' security in India. He emphasised that the well-being and safety of the Pakistan squad was of paramount importance," said an official release issued by the PCB.
It should be noted that the PCB last week had written to the ICC expressing concerns over the delay in getting visas for the journalists and fans. A PCB source, when contacted, said the board has not received any response from either the ICC or the hosts, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). "PCB is extremely disappointed to see that journalists from Pakistan and fans are still facing uncertainty about obtaining an Indian visa to cover Pakistan games in ICC World Cup 2023. In the meantime, PCB has again reminded ICC and BCCI of their respective obligations and terms and conditions stipulated in the host agreement to guarantee visas for fans and journalists of participating teams," added the release.
