{"id":13090,"date":"2025-09-13T15:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=13090"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:33:11","slug":"wasim-akram-tells-pakistan-india-to-forget-noise-and-enjoy-asia-cup-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=13090","title":{"rendered":"Wasim Akram tells Pakistan, India to forget noise and \u2018enjoy\u2019 Asia Cup clash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pace bowling great Wasim Akram has urged Pakistan and India\u2019s cricketers to ignore the noise and enjoy the game when they meet in a highly charged Asia Cup T20<\/a> match on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Group A match in Dubai is the first clash on the cricket field between the countries since a military conflict<\/a> four months ago took relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours to their lowest point in decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India resisted calls to boycott the match between the pair, who have not played in any bilateral series since deadly attacks in Mumbai 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnjoy, it\u2019s a game of cricket,\u201d legendary left-armer Akram told AFP<\/em> of the match, which potentially could be the first of three high-octane meetings between the countries in the T20 tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForget about everything other than cricket. One team will win, and one team will lose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust enjoy the moment if you win the game. Pressure will come, enjoy that and show discipline because this is just a game. It\u2019s for both teams and for both sets of fans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A full house of 25,000 is expected at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium and Akram recalled how he thrived in such pressure situations during his 19-year international career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI enjoyed every game against India, and so did players from the opposition,\u201d said Akram, who led a Pakistan touring team to India in 1999 despite threats from extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 59-year-old was also part of Pakistan\u2019s 1987 tour<\/a> during which the two countries came close to war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akram advised an inexperienced Pakistan team to think of the bigger picture and not get carried away by the hype of playing T20 world champions and arch-rivals India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPakistan have a chance as they won a tri-series<\/a> last week,\u201d said Akram, referring to a T20 series with Afghanistan and the UAE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey should not think that we just need to win against India, think of winning the Asia Cup,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can lose to a big team but even then, stand up and play well in the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the match will be one-sided like India against UAE<\/a>,\u201d said Akram of India\u2019s opening romp on Wednesday, where they needed just 4.3 overs to reach their target after dismissing the hosts for 57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnything can happen in this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistan beat Oman<\/a> by 93 runs in their opening match on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Bangladesh are in Group B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top two teams from each Group will qualify for the Super Four. The Asia Cup final will be in Dubai on September 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pace bowling great Wasim Akram has urged Pakistan and India\u2019s cricketers to ignore the noise and enjoy the game when they meet in a highly charged Asia Cup T20 match on Sunday. The Group A match in Dubai is the first clash on the cricket field between the countries since a military conflict four months ago took relations between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13091,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13090\/revisions\/13091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}