Need to come hard against Sri Lanka: Afridi

Hambantota: Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi is undoubtedly a happy man after crushing Kenya in their opening match of the World Cup but said his side will have to come out all guns blazing against Sri Lanka in their next group A game on Saturday. Pakistan on Wednesday opened their World Cup campaign in style, thrashing a lowly Kenya by 205 runs. “It is a good start but we need to be more positive while batting . We need to give a positive start to the innings. The conditions were harder on Wednesday but atleast we should have taken some chance after seeing off the first 5 overs,” Afridi said after the match. He cautioned his team-mates against complacency ahead of their next game against mighty Sri Lanka in Colombo two days later. “The next game is very important for us. We will have to come out harder on Sri Lanka,” Afridi said. The skipper also praised veteran pacer Shoaib Akhtar for his misery opening spell during which he bowled five overs for just 10 runs but failed to pick up a single wicket.“It is good to see Shoaib (Akhtar) bowl really well with the new ball,” Afridi said. His counterpart Jimmy Kamande did not hide his disappointment after Kenya slumped to its second successive demoralising defeat in the World Cup. Kenya earlier lost by 10 wickets to New Zealand in its tournament-opener. “We are not performing at all. We gave away a lot of extras. Our bowling was 70 per cent there on Wednesday but the same thing happened with the batting which happened in our previous game,” a disappointed Kamande said. “We have to play positive cricket in the rest of the matches. We are gonna try hard and try to improve,” he added.Man-of-the-match Umar Akmal, who scored a 52-ball 71 in the middle-order and helped Pakistan pile 317 for seven, hoped to continue his good showing in the coming matches of the tournament. “I played this sort of an innings after a long time. I was working hard at the nets and it paid off. The captain, coach and the entire also supported me.” “I hope to continue my performance in the future matches of the World Cup,” Akmal said. PTI