I was at the Australia A Vs Pakistan A game yesterday and got to mingle with the players. While the game was a bit of a disappointment, still was a good day out. Firstly spoke with Mohammad Talha while Pak A were batting. He was pretty happy with his performance so far. As soon as I mentioned I was a poster and reader on PakPassion, he immediately opened up.

I was at the Australia A Vs Pakistan A game yesterday and got to mingle with the players. While the game was a bit of a disappointment, still was a good day out.

Firstly spoke with Mohammad Talha while Pak A were batting. He was pretty happy with his performance so far. As soon as I mentioned I was a poster and reader on PakPassion, he immediately opened up. He told me about how he had injured his knee somehow earlier in the tour, which is probably why he didn’t play the second 4-day game. He didn’t know how, but said he felt it just after having dinner. Anyways he was fully recovered now. Unfortunately there was no speed gun there, but he did say that himself, Fahad Masood and Wahab Riaz were really cranking up the pace last game and had the Aussies jumping. I also asked him about his chances with the Pak full team and he was hopeful of working hard to get back in. He said that the test match he did play against SL in Lahore, he was in fact quite sick and had high fever, but just pushed himself to get that first test cap. In hindsight he says he probably shouldn’t have. I also asked him about Sohail Khan and why he had dropped off the radar completely. He said that he say Sohail during the trial games for this A-tour and Sohail just wasn’t fit enough. He said Sohail told him he wasn’t going to push himself to try and get onto this A-tour. We also spoke about the 2020 World Cup win, and unfortunately these boys were at the airport when Pakistan won, so they didn’t get to be part of the celebrations. Out of the current crop, he specifically mentioned Umar Akmal as a player to keep an eye on, and said he will insha allah be part of the full Pakistan squad soon. Akmal was batting then, and he was hopeful that he would score big, as that would ensure another Pak win, unfortunately wasn’t to be. We spoke a fair while, so we did talk about other parts of the game, and the match situation a bit, so I can’t remember all of what we spoke about.

After Akmal got out, I had a bit of a chat with him too. Boy looks so much like his brother Kamran. He was saying that the pitch was a bit on the slow side today quite different from the one on Friday. He was disappointing with how he got out today. In fact he said that today the team needed me more and I failed. He was hopeful that Hafeez would continue on and this was his first 50 on tour. He spoke about some of the Aussie bowlers and said they weren’t that hard to play. He said Bollinger was good, but when they started the tour, the boys were a bit concerned, but said that he was quite easy to play. He specifically said that they had managed to play all the Aussie bowlers quite well and he said that Tait wasn’t being rested, but was probably dropped because they smashed him to all parts of the ground last game. He also spoke about the next A-tour which is pretty much straight after this one and its to Sri Lanka. Most of the current boys will be part of that tour, except for two. He did mention names which I don’t remember, but one player who will be added is Faisal Iqbal.

Lastly, I spoke with the Pak Manager. Mohammad Ilyas. Seems like a nice enough guy. He spoke a bit about the Imran Farhat saga. He says the PCB asked him to speak with Imran and break his ties with the ICL. But Ilyas told them that if they want him, they should talk with him directly. He was saying that Imran was happy as he was making good money with ICL and with playing in England. He also said that there is a good chance that some of the boys who haven’t played yet will play the next one dayer or 2020.