‘Shell shocked’ Ajmal vows revenge from Hussey for ICC WC semifinal humiliation

Karachi, May 20 (ANI): Pakistan off spinner Saeed Ajmal has still not been able to get over the smashing that middle order Australian batsman Michael Hussey gave him during the final over of the second semi-final of the ICC World T20 Championship in Caribbean, as he has vowed to give Hussey a fitting reply the next time both teams meet.

Ajmal said he would never forget the last over in which Hussey clobbered him all around the Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia hitting 18 runs therby winning the game and ensuring a berth in the final of the tournament.

“I don’t know what happened because I was confident I would not let them score 18 runs in the final over but it was just my bad day and Hussey’s day. He played the innings of his life.But I’m confident that I’ll take his wicket the next time we play against Australia,” The News quoted Ajmal, as saying.

Meanwhile, veteran all rounder Abdul Razzaq said that being over-confident after posting a huge total of 191 runs, was one of the prime reasons behind Pakistan’s loss against Australia.

“We relaxed a bit too early against Australia.But overall our performance was good because the players backed each other and there was unity in the team.” Razzaq said. (ANI)

Fielding prime concern for deputy Pak coach Ijaz Ahmed

Lahore, Mar.26 (ANI): Highlighting the need for improving fielding skills, Pakistan assistant cricket coach Ijaz Ahmed has said he would focus mainly on improving the agility of players during the training camp starting here from March 29.

“Fielding has been our biggest weakness and we will mainly focus on it during the training camp. I have special plans which I will implement during the camp to improve our team’s fielding,” The News quoted Ahmed, as saying.

Earlier, T20 captain Shahid Afridi also stressed on the need for improving the fielding of the squad, which was considered one of the prime reasons behind Pakistan’s disastrous performance on their tour of Australia.

Afridi said that he has great faith Ahmed’s capabilities, and is sure that there will be improvements in the fielding and batting of the team.

“Ijaz is really very good when it comes to fielding drills and I’m sure with his help there will be noticeable improvement in that area,” he said. (ANI)

Allow Pak batsmen to play freely like Sehwag: Basit Ali

Islamabad, Mar.23 (ANI): One of the prime reasons young Pakistani cricketers have not made it big on the international circuit is due to them being asked to curtail their natural style of playing.

Former Pakistan batsman Basit Ali underlined this problem during an interview with the PakPassion.net and said youngsters like Mohammad Hafeez and Imran Nazir have loads of talent but they have never been allowed to play according to their own style.

Quoting the example of explosive Indian opener Virender Sehwag, Ali said his (Sehwag’s) key to success is that he plays his natural game.

“These (Pakistani) players should have been allowed to play the way they wanted to. The example I like to give is Sehwag – he plays the way he wants to and succeeds. If you tell Sehwag not to play any shots ever and just block, his average will become 18 too, like Hafeez,” Ali said.

Commenting on Imran Nazir’s inability to transform his talent into big scores, he described Nazir as a ‘15 over player.’

“Imran Nazir is not a player for 50 overs, he’s a player for 15 overs. It is exceedingly silly to use him to bat for 50 overs. He should be told to bat for 15 overs only. If he just bats for the first 15 overs, he can easily score 80 odd runs, and thus get the team to 150 in those 15 overs – job done,” Ali said. (ANI)

’5,000 Malay-Indian kids have not attended school’

Kuala Lumpur, Sep. 4 (ANI): Malaysian Human Rights Commissioner N. Siva Subramaniam has said that almost 5,000 children from the Malay Indian community have not attended school.

Subramaniam counted poverty and lack of birth certificates as the prime reasons for this problem, saying birth certificates were is necessary for children’s admission into schools.

The Star Online quoted Siva as saying that only 39 percent of Malay Indian children attended kindergarten.

“The commission has found that children who attended kindergarten classes can cope with their studies in primary school while those who did not are lagging behind,” he said. (ANI)

Whopping bounty over top extremists points towards failure of Pak intelligence agencies

Islamabad, May 30 (ANI): The Pakistan government’s announcement of hefty bounties on several top Taliban commanders proves that the country’s intelligence agencies have failed completely to hunt down the extremists and destroy their networks.

It also proves that none of the top militant leaders have been apprehended or killed.

Announcing huge head-money on the key militant figures, itself proves that Islamabad has no information about their whereabouts.

It may be noted that the government had changed the bounty of five million rupees on Malakand Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah to 50 million rupees.

One of the prime reasons of the failure of intelligence agencies is that several below average defence and police officers have been deployed in leading spy agencies of the country, undermining their importance, and thus rendering them incompetent, The News reports.

“Without talented and career officers, the field intelligence apparatus of the country cannot meet the challenge they are entrusted,” sources said.

Besides this, the Inter State Intelligence (ISI), which is a civilian agency, is completely commanded by the Pakistan Army.

Similarly, another civilian agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), lacks efficiency and is in a bad shape.

Thus, it seems that the Pakistan government had no prior information about the whereabouts of Maulana Fazlullah, Muslim Khan and other militant leaders at the time it launched the Swat operation, which has rendered over three million people homeless, the report concluded. (ANI)