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Babar Azam-led Pakistan will go up against Bangladesh in hopes of keeping their World Cup 2023 campaign afloat. Head coach Grand Bradburn who showed up for the pre-match press conference said that they are in a position where they will have to depend on the results of other games to make it to the last four stage.
"We are in a position that we didn't want to be. We are determined at this stage of the tournament to be in control of our destiny but we're not. That hurts the group," Bradburn told the reporters at Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
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Pakistan's coach also said that the conditions are foreign to them and their players have not had the experience to exploit them.
"This tournament is on foreign conditions for us. None of our players have played here before. Every venue is a new one, including this one," he added.
He also said that work is being done behind the scenes to analyse oppositions and venues.
"We've done our homework meticulously on our opposition, on our venues that we're playing at, and we're prepared very, very well for each and every encounter.
"But the reality is that each and every venue is a new one for us and we don't feel disadvantaged at all in terms of the knowledge, the quality, the skill, the backing that we have for this team of cricketers," he said.
Bradburn also said that preparations for an event like this begin a few years ahead. He believes that despite starting only six months ago, the team has seen a lot of positives.
"Ideally, preparation for a tournament like this starts four years ahead. We started six months ago and changed direction in the way that we want to play the game of cricket, especially the one-day brand.
"We've shown some positive signs of that over the last six months. We're proud of some of the performances that we've put on. It's taking a little bit longer than we hoped, but we want to play a dynamic brand that matches the challenge of the conditions we're playing in," the New Zealander said.
Pakistan recently were the no.1 ranked ODI side but Bradburn said that ICC rankings are skewed as they don’t get to play against top nations as much as they would want to.
"I'm not sure where you get favourites from because there are 10 teams in this tournament, there's 150 cricketers who are the best on the planet," he said..
"In terms of the ICC rankings, we know they are skewed because we don't get to play India, we don't get to play a lot of the top nations who haven't been to Pakistan of late.”
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