Canada all-rounder Saad Bin Zafar has said playing in front of huge crowds at the T20 World Cup put them under a lot of pressure during the course of the tournament. Placed in Group D, Canada failed to get off the mark in the campaign, but they did have some close moments.
Right through the tournament, they got the opportunity to play in front of a good turnout, in particular during their matches in Chennai against New Zealand and Afghanistan. “There’s a lot of mental pressure when you play in front of the crowd, in front of the mass audience, not just the crowd at the ground, but also the very fact that the whole world is watching you, like it puts you under a lot of pressure. But as cricketers, we have to find ways to control our nerves and focus on the job on hand,” Saad said.
While the experience of playing in front of fans might be a first of a kind, Saad said even in Associate tournaments there is considerable amount of pressure. “In associate cricket, even we play without crowds, but we have other kind of pressures. A lot of the tournaments we play, they’re like our qualifications are on the line, whether we have to play a tournament to regain our ODI status or to qualify for a World Cup. So it’s a different kind of pressure, but that’s pressure itself. So as cricketers, we’re just used to controlling the pressure and staying in present,” Saad said.
As has been the case with many Associate teams, Saad hoped going forward they would get more opportunities to play against full-members as against just facing them in the T20 World Cups. “I think if there’s one thing that I would like to change, it would be associate countries getting more opportunities to compete against some of the best nations, because that’s the learning route, that’s where you learn. It’s also hard for us because we don’t fall under areas like Asia or some region, because in Asian teams, they get to play Asia Cup and few other tournaments. We don’t have anything like that. So if we can start something like that where ICC can help us play some of these regular countries a couple of games throughout the year, it will give us more exposure and more experience,” Saad said.
