Pakistan head coach Mushtaq praised Sri Lanka & pointed out that they won both their games against his team in the tournament - while bowling first as well as batting first. "If you're a champion team, you need to be a champion irrespective of whether it's first innings or second innings," Saqlain Mushtaq said at the press conference. "In the previous game, they asked us to bat first & won. In this game, we batted second & they still won. The way they played in both games, it's well-deserved."
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Saqlain Mushtaq defended Rizwan & said each player has his own method.
"Every team & player has their own style & method.The way we played, we reached semi-finals of the T20 World Cup last year, we got to the final of an Asia Cup here. Evidence suggests you're doing something right to get here. It's not compulsory that you do what the rest of the world is doing. We'd rather focus on the small things we aren't doing right instead of looking at what others are doing. His andaz (method) is not bad."
Mushtaq also backed Pakistan captain Babar Azam & noted that he had a few unlucky dismissals in the tournament. Babar Azam scored only 68 runs in 6 innings in the Asia Cup. "I said it earlier too, if someone looks at his batting, you'd just say he's unlucky, especially the way he's getting out. It's just a patch. If you look at the rankings, he's top in T20Is & in ODIs. It's just been bad luck. The way he's training & playing it's amazing. His work ethic is top notch. I don't need to say more.
When a question was asked in relation to whether Pakistan could have promoted Fakhar to start the innings with a left-hand-right-hand combination, Saqlain Mushtaq observed shuffling the batting unit would have indicated to the players that the think tank doesn't trust them. "You need to show faith, trust & belief. If you keep shuffling, it sends a message that you don't trust them. After the second match itself, there was chatter about our batting shuffle. I don't follow social media, but you do hear the murmurs. You need to give time. If you keep shuffling, how will you know? Whatever we did, it's not good to shuffle a lot. It sends a wrong message."
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