Injured Pakistani pacer Umar Gul advised three weeks rest

KARACHI: Pakistani pacer Umar Gul, who was ruled out of the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies due to shoulder injury, has been advised complete rest for three weeks."The doctorshave given me three weeks complete bed rest so I am not playing cricket at all.But I am definitely following the progress of my team in the World Cup," Gulsaid.He had picked up the injury during team's training camp inLahore for World Cup preparations.Gul has been Pakistan's leadingbowler in the shortest form of the game and many former players and the presentcaptain and coach have admitted his loss to the injury as a big setback for theteam in the world cup."It is a big disappointment not to be part ofthis World Cup because I like the challenge of bowling in T20 cricket. But onecan't do anything about injuries," he said.Gul said he feltdisappointed after watching his team losing to Australia in the leagueencounter."We dropped crucial catches and our fielding was sloppy.The fielders didn't support the bowlers. In T20 cricket, fielders have to takeeven half chances to turn the tide in their team's favour," henoted.The fast bowler from Peshawar said Pakistan had paid dearly for dropping Shane Watson and David Hussey while they were still settling down.He pointed out that if Pakistan had got rid of Watson andHussey early, they could have put the Australians under severepressure.Hussey who smashed Mohammad Sami for four sixes in one overhad only scored five runs when he was dropped on the long off boundary by SalmanButt.Gul also felt that Pakistan should have had a plan B againstthe Australians.He said it was a good move to open the bowling withMuhammad Hafeez given the fact that Australian opener, David Warner wassuspected to be weak against spin bowling and struggled against them in theIPL."But once Warner had settled in and we didn't get an earlybreakthrough we should have employed a Plan B instead of allowing them todominate the match."When Hafeez started to get hit around, then theplan should have been altered straight away. But it seemed to me that there wasno alternative plan," he added.