PAKISTAN captain Sarfraz Ahmed smiles during a press conference at Lord’s on Thursday.—AFP
“We’ve got the pressure of 170 million back home wanting us to win but Pakistan can still qualify and, maybe, the pressure is all on Pakistan going into this game,” Rhodes told reporters. “Both teams are desperate to beat each other. We certainly are. They’ve got a lot to play for as well.”
Rhodes, whose team has won their past four One-day Internationals against Pakistan, said a win in their final match would make it a good tournament for his side.
“Bangladesh versus Pakistan at the beautiful Lord’s, there’s no such thing as a dead rubber. Both teams are desperate to beat each other. We certainly are,” he said.
“If we beat Pakistan, I think we’ve had a very good World Cup, even though we’ve not qualified,” said the former England Test player. “And I say that because the other teams, some of the big teams that we’ve played against, we’ve had close games against them.
“We pushed Australia. We pushed India. Generally, the games we’ve played, we’ve been in the contest, and we’ve showed a lot of fight. We carry on doing that, then we’re going to improve and improve.
“We would have loved to have qualified for the latter stages, that’s a disappointment. But the victories have been very good, certainly, the early ones against South Africa, and West Indies.”
Bangladesh scored 322 to beat the West Indies by seven wickets — the highest successful chase of the tournament.
Rhodes played down the hype around the last World Cup match for skipper Mashrafe Mortaza.
“The one thing about Mashrafe with the players is that they respect him incredibly,” said Rhodes of Mashrafe, who has announced this will be his last World Cup.
“Hopefully, the boys will give him the right sort of respect playing his last game in the World Cup but then most importantly we’ll concentrate on the match.
“I often use the word warrior, but he [Mashrafe] goes to war for the team and people respect that, understand that, and they love him because of that.
“The players in the dressing room do love Mash. He has said it’s his last World Cup and it’ll be emotional for him.”
Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2019