Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq on Wednesday (July 13) admitted that the tourists’ 0-3 ODI series loss to a second-string England side has “unsettled” the team, saying the thrashing is a very worrying sign for him.
A second-string England team- led by Ben Stokes and featuring 9 uncapped players when it was announced, thrashed Pakistan in a three-match ODI series 3-0 in Birmingham earlier this week.
And Misbah said he couldn’t understand the reason why his team was totally off-color and lost its momentum in the recent series.
Misbah told a virtual press conference: “We were satisfied that we were on the right track after doing well in the recent series but this series has unsettled us. It looks like we are standing from where we started but we have to find a way to move forward.”
He added, “I don’t know why the team was totally off-color in this series and lost its momentum but it is a very worrying sign for me as head coach. How can one defend such a performance? No one can defend our performance and I think as a team we are all responsible be it the players, coaches, or support staff.”
We just couldn’t handle the conditions in the first two matches and in the third match we had a total we should have defended but overall it is very disappointing from a bowling point of view and especially our fielding standards. We dropped simple chances.”
Misbah further pointed out that England has the luxury of a strong pool of players, but Pakistan lacked in this area. He continued, “First of all England has a great back up and the luxury of a strong pool of players we don’t have. England had choices for this series and we have limitations at certain positions especially in the middle order spaces where no one has settled down for a while.”
However, the head coach defended his players by remembering this team’s recent performance. He continued, “I don’t understand but we just lost our momentum coming into this series. But I believe we can definitely compete against the top four teams and we have done well in the past against South Africa at home and away.”
On being asked whether there was favoritism, the coach said, “We don’t do favors with any player…this debate goes on…we play a combination which is best and also look at our bench strength. No matter what people think, no one wants to not do well in a match.”
Misbah denied giving the long quarantine and isolation as an excuse for his team’s poor performances in the recent ODI series. He signed off by saying, “If we have one or two poor matches, if things go wrong we can’t say everything is wrong…no one talks about wins…last year’s series wins…we will address our loss as the failure of everyone.”
(With PTI Inputs)
