Afridi vows World Cup win for Pakistan

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HAMBANTOTA: Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi vowed Tuesday to win the World Cup for millions of fans back home.

"Not playing in our country is on our minds," Afridi said, ahead of his team's first match against Kenya on Wednesday.

"We feel for our nation, our people who are missing the World Cup. "I think this is the main thing for us, so definitely we will try our level best to win, which is very important for us, and if we do that I hope some cricket returns to our country sooner than later."

Afridi admitted it was hard to keep the team in the right frame of mind against a background of such problems. "It was difficult to keep the team settled in the beginning when we had all those issues," said Afridi.

"We had to rebuild the team again but now a situation has come that our team is settled. We now have such a combination that people have hopes that this team can do something," said Afridi, who took over as captain in July last year.

"It's difficult to be the captain in India or Pakistan with all that's happening, you have to make sacrifices. But my effort is always that I do well as captain or as player," said Afridi, who made his ODI debut against Kenya in 1996.

"I love Kenya and Kenyans," said Afridi, when asked about his team's opponents. "I don't think we will be relaxed when we face them and I would like to be playing at our full strength."(AFP)