'In-house' tennis tournament helping Pak cricketers keep fit during ICC T20 World Cup

The Pakistan cricket team, which is just a couple of steps away from retaining the ICC World T20 Championship in the West Indies, has adopted a unique way of keeping itself fit and also avoid boredom during the tournament.

Sources close to the team have revealed that players are having a tennis tournament of their own which is keeping them engrossed off the field, thus ensuring that there were no distractions and squabbles during the tour.

Players have formed doubles teams and have been competing with each other throughout the Caribbean tour.

Salman Butt has Kamran Akmal as his partner, while Umar Akmal has paired up with fast bowler Mohammad Sami. Skipper Shahid Afridi plays alongside his Karachi teammate Fawad Alam, and Mohammed Sami has joined Khalid Latif, PakPassion.net reports.

“Tennis has been a good way of the boys bonding. They have had some good fun on the tennis court and it's definitely helped with their fitness and stamina levels. I would say they were pretty cool and laid back on the tennis court, rather like Roger Federer, instead of the firebrand John McEnroe. The pressure can get quite intense and these sort of fun activities definitely have helped the boys,” sources close to the team said.

They also revealed that the team of Afridi-Alam and Kamran-Salman are vying with each other for the top ranking in the tournament, which would continue till the end of the T20 championship.

Wonder whether this love for tennis of Pakistani cricketers has anything to do with Shoaib Malik’s wedding with Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza.