Pakistan’s World Cup 2023 team conducts its first practice session in Hyderabad amidst heavy security. The Babar Azam-led Pakistan cricket team, which arrived on Wednesday night, got down to business right away by participating in a two-hour practice session at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium on Thursday.
On Thursday morning at around 9.00 AM, the Pakistani squad entered the stadium amidst unprecedented security precautions inside and outside the stadium.
Before engaging in serious “net practice,” the squad conducted a warm-up session, a fielding session, and then a fielding session.
Prior to their World Cup campaign, the players visited the venue and the fields and allegedly expressed pleasure with the amenities and the playing environment.
Both the morning team practice for New Zealand and the team practice for Pakistan were unknown to the media.
According to a senior Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) official, it appears that the security agencies didn’t want to take any chances because today also happened to be Ganesh Visarjan in the city and the practice sessions were scheduled early in the morning to avoid any inconvenience due to the procession of Lord Ganesh idols later in the day.
Pakistan will compete in two exhibition matches, one on September 29 against New Zealand and the other on October 3 against Australia.
By all means, the HCA employees did a fantastic job, which K. Durga Prasad, who is aiding Supreme Court Justice (Retd) L. Nageshwara Rao in ending the “impasse” in the HCA, personally oversaw on a daily basis.
The revamped Rajiv Gandhi Stadium and its lush, billiards-table-like outfield are evidence of the kind of work the ground staff led by Y.L. Chandrasekhar and supported by Mukesh Kumar have done.
The Netherlands will play Pakistan in Pakistan’s opening World Cup encounter on October 6, and Sri Lanka will play Pakistan in this match on October 10. On October 14, the team takes a flight to Ahmedabad to face India, their bitter adversary.
The Pakistani squad members were obviously happy with how easy it was for them to arrive at Rajiv Gandhi Airport on Wednesday night and go to the hotel while adhering to the necessary security precautions.
“Overwhelmed with the love and support here in Hyderabad,” Babar Azam wrote in a post to his Instagram account.
