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Untitled Document
 Butt hopes to break World Cup jinx against India
14th Sep 2007 08:05 IST
Agencies
Pakistan have left no stone unturned to break the jinx but every effort to beat archrivals India in World Cup has come a cropper. Vice captain Salman Butt feels Friday maybe the day.
Butt sniffs a gilt-edged chance in Friday's Twenty20 World Cup tie against the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led squad, which is without the Big Three -- Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.
"As for the World Cup jinx, there is always a first time, so why not tomorrow? We hope tomorrow will be the day and we are working hard towards that," Butt said, oozing confidence on Thursday.
Butt admits an India-Pakistan tie is always the mother of all battles but feels it would be better if the players view it just as an opportunity rather than a pressure situation.
"Every coin has two sides," Butt said. "You can either look at it as pressure game, or as an opportunity. I see it as an opportunity, because if you look at it that way, it can bring the best out of you.
"This (India vs Pakistan) is the biggest of all matches. It's always nice to win against India, and I am sure they will also feel that way when they defeat us. If we perform well and defeat India, it changes the entire mood of the nation," he said.
And Butt also took the occasion to point to his impressive track record against the traditional rivals.
"I have enjoyed playing India, I have three hundreds against them. A match against India is a great chance to make a name for yourself," Butt said.
Neither side has played a great deal of Twenty20 cricket, and Butt pointed out that the team that adjusted to the bounce at Kingsmead had more chances of courting success.
"We played a couple of games in Nairobi before coming here, but it was under different conditions, on different pitches. Durban is different in that there is a lot more bounce. It is not so much pace as the amount of bounce. It is like tennis-ball bounce, the ball shoots up from a length. You need to adjust. Whoever adjusts quicker will have a better chance."
Butt has had a distinguished international career, and he admitted that it was important for him to be consistent, especially given the added responsibility of vice-captaincy.
"Consistency is the best way forward. My aim is to be consistent in international cricket. If you look at the game at the highest level, very few guys make it right at the start of their careers.
"If you look at India, people like Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj Singh have been in and out of the Test side. It is all about how you carry on and how much you learn, and that comes with time." |
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