Waqar Younis believed that recent spot-fixing scandal and other controversies have helped the team come out fighting.

AUCKLAND: Pakistan cricket coach Waqar Younis is hopeful that successful tour of New Zealand will mark a turning point in the fortunes of his team ahead of the World Cup. Before the tour to New Zealand, where Pakistan won Test series 1-0 and one-day series 3-2, they had not won a Test series since 2006 and a one-day series since 2008.

“I’m pretty pleased because it has been a while since Pakistan won anything, almost three years for a one-day series and quite a few years since we won a Test series, so it’s definitely satisfying,” Waqar said.

He believed that recent spot-fixing scandal and other controversies have helped the team come out fighting.

“I always say that the amount of controversies we have had over the last eight or nine months, we needed something like this. We needed to develop our team again, we needed to bring the teams back into Pakistan and the only way we can do it is if we start playing well,” Waqar said.

“I think this is one reason why we played well. Hopefully in the future we will try to play best cricket we can.”—Agencies