Daily Times

Pakistan’s cricket coach Micky Arthur said on Tuesday that the 5-0 loss against Australia was “incredibly hard”, but accounted the poor performance to the lack of key players in the squad. We hate losing as a team – it’s not part of our vocabulary. Losing 5-0 was incredibly hard. We didn’t have our best team against Australia,” Arthur said while addressing a press conference here. Arthur pointed to the number of players Pakistan had decided to rest, but conceded the side’s fielding and fitness fell well below the standards required over the five games. “I think on this tour, our fitness standards and our fielding were not where they needed to be,” Arthur said. “That’s understandable when you see the likes of young Abid Ali, Mohammad Hasnain, and guys like that hadn’t been in our setup before. Those that had been in our setup for a long period of time, who know what the standards are, are aware we will never ever compromise on fitness.”

He added that no compromises would be made on players’ fitness with the World Cup right around the corner. “There will be no compromise on players’ fitness. We will conduct fitness tests on April 14. We will then sit down with the selection committee and make decisions about the World Cup squad.” Arthur said that he and the management were sure about their squad picks for the World Cup and the strategy they would be using to train for the mega event.

Going back to Pakistan’s dismal performance against the team from down under Arthur said, “The series against Australia was disappointing – but there were positive takeaways. We gave opportunity to new talent in order to test them.” He said that five centuries in the series and Hasnain’s debut were the a major positive outcome from the games played against Australia. He further said that Sarfraz Ahmed was the management’s first pick as a wicket keeper and new-comer Asif Ali would be focusing on taking the sixth spot in the batting lineup. “We need to give him confidence,” Arthur said.

Pakistan’s ODI form has been a worry over the past 15 months, with the team having lost ODI series against New Zealand, South Africa and Australia in addition to a dismal Asia Cup outing in September 2018. Arthur, however, cautioned against panicking weeks out from the World Cup, pointing out Pakistan still had plenty of games to play before the tournament began. “The series against Australia was an opportunity to rest our key players ahead of what is a very demanding schedule leading up to the World Cup. We’ve got 11 fully fledged games of cricket from the beginning of May until our first World Cup game. That includes three games against counties, five ODIs against England and then two warm-up games for the World Cup.

Arthur was more reserved about what conclusions he had reached with respect to Pakistan’s World Cup squad, keeping his cards close to his chest, but did say he was on the same page with chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq.