Daily Times

KARACHI: If the Pakistan players were looking for some consolation from their coach Mickey Arthur after an eight-wicket pounding from India on Wednesday, they found none. There was no sugar coating, just an honest appraisal of what went wrong. “I think the pressure told on opener Imamul Haq,” Arthur said Thursday in Dubai. “That’s not in his area. If he comes down, he’s going to be going extra cover, not midwicket, so yes I do think there was a little bit of pressure.” Arthur wasn’t against the idea of hitting over the top, but said the team management had worked overtime to drill into each player their role. Fakhar Zaman, for example, has been empowered to biff the bowling without worrying about repercussions, because anything else would be tweaking his natural ability. We’ve got guys, X-factor guys whose role it is to do that hit out,” Arthur said.

“If Fakhar gets out playing that way, then it’s okay, because that’s what he needs to do. If Asif Ali gets out like that it’s okay because that’s his role. But the other four batsmen certainly need to take responsibility. And I just thought we were soft — 158 dot balls out of 258 played is not good enough.”

Arthur said on a wicket like that you needed to strike really if you were going to defend it. “We didn’t strike early enough. We went away from our plans too quickly. We said that our batters batted outside our roles and that wasn’t acceptable. With our bowling, we went outside our plans far too quickly. We wanted to bowl hard lengths, hit the top of off stump. It was tough to score then.” It wasn’t just Usman Khan’s poor outing that concerned Arthur. He was also mindful of the growing pressure on Mohammad Amir, whose struggle for wickets since last year’s Champions Trophy is becoming an Achilles heel, but was encouraged by what he saw in the six overs Amir bowled.

Published in Daily Times, September 21^st 2018.