ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

November 5, 2022

Shan Masood

Adelaide Oval

Pakistan

Pre Match Media Conference

Q. There's been a problem in the middle order since a while back in the Asia Cup as well. When Matthew Hayden joined the team, did he speak about that middle order failure or improving on that aspect to you guys?

SHAN MASOOD: I don't think specifically because, again, you'll have to look at situations. I think in this tournament it has been different.

It has been a case where, especially if you look at the last game, we were 40 for 4. That's when the middle order really stepped up and produced their A-game. Against India we got a decent score on the board. 160 was I think a good score, above par score at the MCG.

Zimbabwe maybe, but again, we had that game in control. We were 80 for 2 after 13 overs, and we only had to chase around a ball with 8 wickets in hand.

So I think there have been significant improvements. We look at the situation. There will be situations where the openers get the chunk of the runs as they've done for years a couple of years now. That's when the middle order has a smaller role to play, but an effective role and a very sort of reduced role to play where they get less balls, but they have to score at a quick pace there.

But then there will be situations like we found a couple of times at the World Cup where we lose our two key players at the top, but then the middle order has to step in and chase their target or put a score on the board.

So I think there has been improvements in regards to that.

Q. Shan, you spoke about, of course, some things are not in the control of a team, but on a day when you have three matches on the day and a lot of equations, like plus-minus, net run rate and all this going on. What is that thing that you guys have spoken about with each other so that whatever it is that you guys go in in a confident state of mind because South Africa plays before here, so it's the second game of the day, so...

SHAN MASOOD: Honestly, it will be -- we're sandwiched between the two games. There will be a result that we'll know before, which might be in our favor, might not be. Then there's a match after that as well.

So, again, we can't look behind or too far ahead. What's important is what we have realized through some harsh lessons that we can only do what's in our control. Losing two games was not easy, but after that I think the team has responded well in doing whatever they can control, whatever we can control.

So we're just going to control our performances. We're going to control the first 20 overs first. And then once the break is done, we'll analyze again and we will see where we are. Then we'll try and control the next 20 overs. Whether it's with the bat or ball, again, it's not within our control.

It's always, look, always playing for your country. You don't need any motivation, whether it's the World Cup or not. Just playing for your country, putting that shirt on, I think for every individual in this camp, it means a lot.

You play for pride. You play for yourself. You play for your country. We don't need to look at other things. We just need to look at ourselves. We need to produce our best performances, and we're going to try and make up for whatever we didn't achieve before.