Shafiq rates his gritty 34-run innings in Pak-Oz World Cup clash as best so far

Islamabad, April 17 : Pakistan batsman Asad Shafiq, who played a gritty 34-run innings against Australia to help his team end the Aussies’ 34 match unbeaten streak in the World Cup, has said it was his best international innings so far.

Shafiq, who also scored an unbeaten half-century as Pakistan beat Zimbabwe in their penultimate World Cup group match last month, rated his steady knock against Australia as his best.

“It has to be the innings against Australia. There are so many reasons for it. Ending the undefeated streak, holding one end up and bringing the team within touching distance of the score. For me, it''s the innings that took the most out of me as a player,” Cricistan.com quoted Shafiq, as saying.

Even before the Pakistan-Australia game began, he said, he was determined that this would be the match that would end Aussies'' undefeated streak.

“I knew that the last team to beat Australia was Pakistan and therefore it would only be fitting if Pakistan were the team to end the streak as well. I used that thought to motivate myself and I was determined that I would play my part in making sure that Pakistan won the match,” he added.

Thanks to some fantastic work from Pakistan’s bowlers, their batsmen had a low total of 176 runs to chase.

“However, I''d seen too many Pakistani collapses against Australia to become complacent about it. When we lost an early wicket, I decided that I would stay at the wicket for as long as I could. I knew that if one of us batsmen could make a stand and blunt the Aussie attack, then it would help to calm the person coming in at the other end. When you''re chasing a low total, all it takes is one batsman to hold up one end and you can win the game,” said Shafiq.

When asked how it felt when wickets kept falling around him during the chase, the right-hand batsman said he could not afford to worry about this at that critical juncture.

"That''s the nature of cricket, wickets will fall. You can''t worry about what is happening at the other end. If you start to do that, then it will get to you, and you will be walking to the dressing room yourself. What I do is that I worry about the things that I do have control over, like my own batting and concentration," he said

"Of course you will give advice to the person at the other end but you cant allow yourself to come under pressure from the scoring rate or if you''re losing partners at the other end. If you stick on the wicket, then you will become used to the conditions and the bowling and then you can make up the runs later in the innings," he added.