Colombo, Mar 1: Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi today asked his unpredictable team to be more consistent and make winning a habit if it hopes to go all the way in the ongoing cricket World Cup.
Pakistan had a tumultuous build-up to their World Cup campaign, which was ridden by captaincy issues and a spot-fixing scandal.
But once the World Cup kicked off, Shahid Afridi's men zoomed to top of Group A after notching up a 205-run victory over Kenya and an 11-run triumph against Sri Lanka.
The green brigade will next take on Canada on Thursday, looking for another two points and Afridi ordered his team to carry on the momentum.
"We must show consistency because we are not known for that. We need to keep the momentum going in the Canada match because we still have a long way to go in the tournament," said Afridi, after practice today.
"We had a very good win against Sri Lanka, so we want to keep the momentum going. We should not be negative about anything and must make winning a habit. We have to take every match seriously, more so against a team who we don't know," said Afridi, who scalped nine wickets so far in the World Cup.
Pakistan played Canada just once in the 1979 World Cup, which the Asian giants won with eight wickets in hand at Leeds.
"We have tried to gather some video footage of their initial matches but we are not bothered about that. After this match, we have New Zealand so we must win this one and then think about future games," said Afridi.
Left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman is likely to replaced by off-spinner Saeed Ajmal for the Canada match after the former picked up a muscle injury against Sri Lanka.
Test skipper Misbah-ul-Haq, who hit 65 and an unbeaten 83 in the first two matches, is also likely to miss out because of a minor hamstring problem and Asad Shafiq is expected to step into his shoes. PTI
