Malik confident of support

Profiles / Editor / 17 May 2007 / Leave a Comment

Pakistan's Shoaib Malik has insisted he is not feeling any pressure ahead of his debut as skipper and is confident he has the full support of the players.

Malik, who has played just 18 Tests, leads the side for the first time in a three-match one-day international series against Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi, starting on Friday.

Pakistan are playing for the first time since crashing out of the World Cup and go into the series without Inzamam-ul-Haq, who has retired from one-day international cricket and stepped down as Test captain, and Younus Khan, who has elected to stay with his new county, Yorkshire.

The 1992 World Cup winners have still to appoint a full-time coach, following the tragic death of Bob Woolmer in the Caribbean, and manager Talat Ali will take charge of the team for this upcoming series.

Despite the pressure that Malik is facing, he insists he is relishing the task of getting back to winning ways.

"I am not nervous at all," Malik said. "I know the season ahead is difficult but I will live up to the confidence placed in me by the Pakistan Cricket Board and the fans. I am confident that all the players will work hard to put the team back on a winning track and forget what happened in the World Cup.

"Whatever happened in the past is now past and the best thing about this current team is that all the senior players are very co-operative and once we win the morale of the team will go up."

In the developing market, Pakistan are the 1.76 favourites to win the opening game, with Sri Lanka on offer at 2.16 but Malik has warned his players they will need to be at the top of their game if they are to overcome the World Cup runners-up - who are missing a number of key players themselves due to county commitments.

"Sri Lanka are a formidable team and even without (Muttiah) Muralitharan, (Chaminda) Vaas and (Kumar) Sangakkara, we will have to be at our best to beat them," he added.