Thursday, July 21, 2016

Pressure on us after Lord's win: Steve Rixon

Steve Rixon, Pakistan's fielding coach, feels the conditions in Manchester suit Pakistan's bowling. He believes that the extra bounce will work in their favour and has also backed Mohammad Amir to come good.

"This pitch will suit both forms (spinners and pacers) of our attack," he told the media on Wednesday (July 20). I think our seamers will do very well here with the extra bounce. They had a role to play in the last game, but probably didn't start as well as they would have liked.

"Amir can move on now. And I do congratulate the Lord's crowd again because they absolutely embraced him. They could have made life very hard for him, but they were very good. Fair play to them."

Pakistan won the first Test in four days at Lord's to take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series. Rixon said they are working towards building a culture in the camp. "What we've got is a group of youngsters who we are getting up to speed and building a culture," he revealed. "I wasn't there for the boot camp but it obviously did make a big difference. It was part of an overall culture change. Now we have to rebuild that culture and make sure everyone is on the same page."

Rixon also refused to get carried away after the win. England are going to bring back James Anderson and Ben Stokes into the mix and Pakistan will have to cop with a much stronger home side. "Jimmy Anderson is a great bowler and he'll be a treat in any side," Rixon said. "He and Stokes are very fine cricketers. They will add to the England attack and overall composition of the side. We are expecting as hard a game as we'll get in the series right here.

"Having won at Lord's, the pressure is probably on us. So we need to get our game in order. If we do that and win here, then happy days. But if we lose here and the momentum swings the other way then we have two games in Birmingham and The Oval which create a lot of pressure for our youngsters. So it's very important we get it right here."

The second Test will start from Friday at Old Trafford.

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