Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed wants to end World Cup 2019 with a win against Bangladesh

Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed on Thursday said that he is not thinking too much about the mathematics ahead of Pakistan’s final ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup match against Bangladesh on Friday and is focused on just winning the game to end the World Cup campaign on a high.

It is to be noted that Pakistan can still mathematically overtake New Zealand to reach the semi-finals of Cricket World Cup 2019 but England’s comprehensive win over New Zealand on Wednesday made Pakistan's chances of booking a place in last four practically impossible.

“We’re just interested in finishing the tournament on a high note and doing our best against Bangladesh,” Sarfaraz was quoted as saying by ICC.

This is only the second meeting between Pakistan and Bangladesh in World Cup history. In their first game, Bangladesh had defeated Pakistan by 62 runs but after that defeat Pakistan went on a 25-match winning streak against their Asian rivals. But Pakistan must be wary of the fact that Bangladesh have won their four encounters against the Men In Green heading into the latest showdown at Lord’s.

“Yes we’ve lost our last four matches but this is a World Cup match. Both teams are looking stronger than the last time we played, so hopefully we will do well as a team," he added.

Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur urged his top order batsmen to play well against Bangladesh. He rued the fact that only Babar Azam has scored a century for Pakistan in World Cup so far.

“They are getting in and scoring but we’d like them to push on a little bit because once your top order gets in, it’s so important to go on and get a century,” he said.  “Those guys need to push on because a big score is just around the corner.”

“We got ourselves into a position to win against Australia and didn’t and against India we were outplayed but since then we’ve played very, very good cricket. If we had to go back the thing that really haunts me is the loss to the West Indies, it was a game right at the start of the tournament where we should have come in firing and we didn’t," Arthur told ICC.