RAWALPINDI, Dec 9: Pakistan team for next month’s Junior World Cup in New Zealand began a series of matches among themselves Sunday in preparation for the event.

The national training camp for the Junior World Cup has been in progress at Pindi cricket stadium here since Monday under the supervision of coach Haroon Rashid.

The series of practice matches in preparation for the World Cup has been arranged among the 14 selected players and stand- byes.

Pakistan team will arrive in New Zealand on Jan 11 while the Junior World Cup commences on Jan 17.

Team coach Haroon Rashid said the players are being trained to face the moving ball. “We are having targeted bowling and the pitches laid at the stadium are perhaps the most seaming in the world.”

This, he said, was meant to enable the players to cope with the moving ball in countries like New Zealand. “Besides, we are also concentrating on improving our batting and fielding.”

He said though England, grouped with Pakistan in the preliminary round, are already training in New Zealand, Pakistanis will acclimatise to the conditions in the Kiwis land in double quick time.

Besides England, the two other teams in Pakistan’s group in the preliminary round are Nepal and Papua New Guinea.

Haroon said he was concentrating on removing the shortcomings observed in the team in the 4-1 thrashing of Sri Lanka juniors last month.

Squad: Salman Butt (captian), Junaid Zia, Atiq-ur-Rehman, Khaqan Arsal, Asim Munir Butt, Kamran Sajid, Arsalan Mir, Amin-ur-Rehman, Azhar Ali, Irfanuddin, Najaf Shah, Umer Gul, Kamran Younus, M. Fayyaz.

Standbyes: Yasir Shah, Muhammad Khalil, Saquib Zia, Azam Hussain, Zulqarnain Haider.—APP