Adaptibility The Key In Twenty20 World Cup

Adaptability and mental approach will be key to success in the inaugural Twenty20 Cricket World Cup to be held in South Africa in September, Batting Coach Haroon Rasheed said on Tuesday.
"By moulding their game according to the situation, batsmen can prove more useful for the team in the shorter version of the game," he said.
"Fifty50 and twenty20 overs cricket are totally different, so batsmen should adopt to the quick changing scenario," he said.
"Twenty20 is basically a batsmen oriented game and they have more opportunities as compared to bowlers," he maintained.
Haroon underlined the importance of all three areas of the game - batting, bowling and fielding in this exciting, innovative version of the game. "Fitness is crucial in this brand of cricket," he said.
Despite Pakistan's consistent batting failures, Haroon rated Pakistan as the front-runner in the race for the title with South Africa, Australia, England and West Indies the other contenders in the Twenty20 World Cup.
"We got explosive batsmen like Salman Butt, Imran Nazir, Imran Farhat, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq. They all suite this brand of cricket," he pointed. "But for winning, our batsmen got to be consistent, read and deliver in crunch situations and play in the interest of the team," he stressed.
He negated the impression that World Cup debacle in West Indies was still haunting them. "They are all out of that and looking ahead to the new assignment," he added.
He said being a batting coach during the past three training camps in Abbotabad, Lahore and now in Karachi he had had lengthy discussions with the batsmen.
"My first objective with the batsmen was to discuss their technical problems and if they agreed - work on the remedy," he said. "I worked with Butt, Imran, Farhat, Hafeez, Yasir, Faisal, Misbah and Fawwad on stance, batting technique etc and they are quite pleased with things now," he remarked.
Commenting on Imran Nazir's off-stump problems on incoming deliveries, he said his bat was coming on the ball from gully area instead of the off-stump area. "If your bat is coming on to the bat from the gully there are more chances of edges in the slips, he mentioned.
"I worked on improving technical and mental strength of batsmen in camps with good results," he commented.
"I taught the batsmen to fully focus on contributing to the interest of the team even after reaching a personal target like fifty or a century," he informed.
"If teams wins, a small contribution could be useful and even a century can prove useless if your team loses, " he vowed.
Haroon hoped with contracts being awarded to players in domestic cricket,it will improve the situation. These steps of PCB will remove the financial worries of the players and allow them to be fully focussed and concentrate on the game.