Pakistan suffered a heartbreaking one-wicket defeat at the hands of South Africa in Match 26 of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 at Chepauk on Friday (October 27).
After the game, Pakistan team director Mickey Arthur addressed a press conference, where he defended the players and the management.
It was Pakistan’s fourth successive loss in the marquee event. No wonder, the fans, media and former cricketers are reacting strongly back home. However, Arthur termed the criticism directed towards skipper Babar Azam and chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq as “unfair”.
“They're going to be blaming everybody, don't worry. It's just the way of the world. It's really unfair to start a witch-hunt, certainly on Babar Azam, on Inzi [chief selector, Inzamam-ul-Haq], on our coaches, on the management team,” Arthur was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo
“What I do know is the boys have tried and the effort of the coaching staff, the effort of the players has been first-class. If they would see that the amount of effort that the players and staff put in, they would be amazed,” he added.
Arthur, however, conceded that the Pakistani players have failed to put together a “perfect game” in their campaign so far.
"Tonight, I thought was our best bowling performance of the competition. I thought we bowled really well, but I still thought we were under-par in terms of the runs that we had. We haven't put the perfect game together yet. It hasn't been for lack of effort, hasn't been for lack of trying, but we just haven't got enough players in form at the minute, particularly with the bat,” Arthur stated.
"Tonight is a totally different feeling in that dressing-room to the Afghanistan game. The Afghanistan game, we were average in all departments. Tonight, we were okay with the bat, I thought we were very good with the ball. And tonight, I'm really proud of those [players] because they fought right to the bitter end," he added.
With his loss, Pakistan’s semi-final chances have reduced considerably. Apart from winning their remaining three games, the Men in Green will now depend on the results of other teams to make it to the final four.
However, Mickey Arthur remains optimistic. "You never know. What I do know is that we need to go and assess combinations again, we need to have a look at the holes we have within our team. We need to we need to start improving in a lot of areas and we've got to go home and finish this tournament with three victories. That's what I do know. Every day we'll be trying and we'll be striving to do that," he said.
After Pakistan’s loss to India in Ahmedabad, Arthur had complained about the partisan crowd and no Pakistani music being played at the venue. He also said that it felt like a bilateral series game organized by BCCI rather than an ICC event.
However, the Pakistan team director had praise reserved for the “fantastic” Chennai crowd.
"Yeah, the crowd was outstanding tonight. It was really good. Take the results out of the way, Chennai has been outstanding. Training facilities, everything has been brilliant. And the crowd tonight was fantastic. And I think at least we've given the World Cup the close finish that it needed to kick-start it on. It's just a pity we were on the wrong side of that," Arthur concluded.
(ESPNCricinfo Inputs)
