Dawn
Dawn Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper.

Difficult to switch to Test from one-dayer, says Saeed

By Our Sports Reporter
2 October 1998



KARACHI, Oct 1: A delighted Saeed Anwar on Thursday admitted that he faced difficulty in switching from one-day game to Test cricket. ``I struggled like any other Pakistan batsmen (earlier in the innings) because we had just come from Canada after playing one-day cricket. Our last Test was against Zimbabwe six months ago,'' Anwar, who rescued Pakistan with a classy unbeaten 132, said.

``I feel that it's easier to play one-day cricket after Test cricket but extreme difficult the other way round,'' Anwar said from Rawalpindi on telephone.

He said he was unsure of the wicket earlier in his innings, adding hat as the game progressed, he gained confidence.

``It gives you a great deal of confidence when you start the series with a century,'' he said.

``But my job isn't complete yet. I have to score as many runs as possible on Friday so that our bowlers have a decent score to play with. On this wicket, we would have been comfortable with a score something around 350 but now I think 300 should be a respectable total,'' Anwar said.

Anwar defended his decision to accept bad light when he was scoring runs at will. ``Mushtaq Ahmad was suffering from cramps and was a bit tired as well. The light was so bad that I even couldn't see a few balls beating my outside edge.''

Anwar, commenting on Stuart MacGill, said he bowled pretty straight ``but it would be injustice to Shane Warne if you compare the two. Shane (Warne) is a world class and Stuart MacGill is still learning.

``He doesn't have much variation in his bowling but it is wrong to compare a newcomer with an experienced bowler like Shane Warne. It has to be see how he performs after two years,'' Anwar said.


Source: Dawn
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