Hesson preaches focus ahead of Asia Cup Final having urged his players to block out distractions and play cricket.
As Pakistan prepares to meet India in the tournament final, head coach Mike Hesson has encouraged his team to put all outside concerns aside and concentrate only on cricket. The competition’s third meeting between the bitter rivals has mostly focused on off-field problems and on-field gestures rather than the actual game of cricket.
“Look, my message to the players is just focus on cricket and that certainly we will be doing. In terms of gestures there has always been passion in terms of high-pressure games,” said Hesson.
“We’ve deserved this opportunity. Now it’s up to us to make the most of it. All games up to this point have been about getting ourselves in a position to win the trophy. The only match that counts is the final, and that will be our focus, to play our best game when it matters,” he added.
“Look, whenever you reach different phases of a tournament, your opposition often doesn’t allow you to play the perfect game, and we were far from perfect. We realized that in the first 10 overs,” said Hesson.
“But there’s a huge amount of character in this group. We’ve won many games in the last few months where we were far from controlling the full 40 overs. We had to fight back, but one thing I can say is that the team is incredibly proud to represent Pakistan,” he added.
“Every single player believed that we could fight our way out of it. That’s what you want in a team, especially when representing a country. So yes, I’m incredibly proud of the way we fought. We don’t want to be four for 33 all the time, but the fact that we can win from that position shows the character of this group,” he concluded.