Afridi: Irish defeat played on my mind

Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi has admitted he was haunted by the infamous loss of 2007 when Canada were pushing hard for a win on Thursday.

Pakistan cruised to a comfortable 46-run victory in a mesmerising Group A clash thanks to another mesmerising spell from Afridi (5 for 23, but the captain conceded he was under pressure at the Premadasa in Colombo .

Ireland had chased down Pakistan 's paltry total in the West Indies in the last ICC Cricket World Cup in 2007 and Afridi was in no mood to let another minnow ruin their party.

"I knew what would have happened had we lost against Canada . The 2007 defeat was of course on my mind but the conditions in Sri Lanka have been perfect for spinners," Afridi told the media after a Man-of-the-Match effort.

The conditions and the wicket were more to Pakistan 's advantage than the one where Ireland helped themselves to one of the greatest upsets in ICC CWC history. The leg-spinner shot to the top of the wicket-takers' list with his second five-wicket haul of the tournament. However, Afridi was rather humble about his game-changing spell.

"The conditions have been so good for spinners here. In fact, this wicket was slower than the one we had against Sri Lanka . It was a very good one-day surface," Afridi said.

The skipper was happy with the way his bowlers have come along so far in the ICC CWC 2011 and thanked the coaches for a consistent attack: "The coaches have been doing a very good job with the bowlers and that is showing on the park."

However, Afridi was livid with the side's shoddy batting, which gave Canada a whiff of hope. Set 185 runs to win, the Canadians were well on their way till Afridi struck some meaty blows.

"It was a good decision to bat first but it wasn't good shot selection. It's all about responsibility. We needed partnerships but that's what we were missing. Partnerships are very important..

"It's a very good wake-up call for us for the next game. Myself and coach Waqar Younis will talk to the boys and it will definitely not happen again."

"We are not going to repeat this batting performance," Afridi said, visibly angry with his batsmen.

None of Pakistan 's wins have come without a flaw. If it was the early loss of wickets against Kenya , the fielding caused some headaches for the management in their victory over Sri Lanka . The batting no-show, Afridi admitted, had to be rectified quickly if Pakistan were to make more impact in the rest of the tournament.

"If we want to play better cricket against some of the better teams, we have to improve out batting. Against Canada , the batsmen had to stay put at the wicket. It was a little overcast to begin with and the ball was stopping on to the batsman but we needed to show better application," Afridi said.

Pakistan play their next match against New Zealand in Kandy on March 8 - enough time time to get rid of their batting worries.

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