While the performance of the Pakistan team at the World Cup came under the scanner, there have been calls for patience with the existing team also. However, the Director of Cricket, Mickey Arthur, opined on what the future should be like for Pakistan.
“I don’t think we played our best game here. I think I really believe the best four teams in the competition are now playing the semifinal. I think what we’ve seen is that, and it’s something that we’ve continually tried to push is that we’re behind the eight ball. Our game needs to go to another level. Our bowling attack, I think we miss Naseem Shah,” he said. “Batting-wise, we have to become a 330-350 team. The teams that are doing that and doing that consistently are the teams that are in the semifinal. And I don’t think we’ve done that consistently enough. We do that when Fakhar Zaman comes off and we can’t just be relying on one player.”
Meanwhile, there has been controversy after Pakistan’s cricket all through the World Cup 2023 with the board releasing statements seemingly questioning the management, and also a re-look to the management after the marquee event. While everyone awaits what’s in store for them, Arthur asks for “consistency”.
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“Look, we know. We’ve planned. We know exactly where we need to go to. We need to know what we need to do. Planning’s already started. We’re a long way down the line with our Test planning for Australia. But ultimately, we can only control what we can. What we can control is how we prepare our players. What we control is the messaging that we give to our players. We can’t control anything else. What will be, will be in that regard. But we’ve got to stay consistent. We’ve got a very impressionable young group of players now. There’s some very good young players who are going to have big careers. We need to just keep preaching them the right messaging. We’ve got to stay consistent, stay consistent around our selection, stay consistent around our messaging, and allow those guys an environment which allows them to play and play to the best of their ability,” Mickey Arthur said.
The questions that are to come their way include some in the direction of Arthur himself, who reiterated his commitment to the role.
“As I said, I came in to do this director job, obviously in conjunction with Derbyshire because I care a hell of a lot for that dressing room, because I care for Pakistan cricket. Pakistan cricket is very close to my heart, and that was the reason that when Mr. [Najam] Sethi came calling, I did it, was because I want to give stability, I want to give the structure, I want the players to be able to grow up in an environment that’s consistent and stable, outside of all the ramblings and the noise that goes on. We owe it to those players. There’s some, as I say, there’s some very young players who get affected by all the ramifications of what goes on the outside. As I say, we’ve just got to stay consistent for them because it’s their careers and there’s some very fine players there,” he again said while defending the under-fire captain Babar Azam.
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“We were a real tight knit unit. I get behind Babar. Babar is very, very close to me. He’s a young guy that needs to be taken on the journey with. He needs to be shown the ropes. He’s still learning all the time. We know he’s a very, very fine batsman. He learns every day with his captaincy. He’s growing and we have to allow him the time to go. And in order to do that, you make mistakes. Everybody, it’s not a crime to make mistakes as long as you learn from those mistakes and as a group, we’ve made a lot of mistakes this World Cup but if this group grows and learns from it, we’ve got the core of a very, very good side,” further added Arthur.
“If the environment is unstable, what you find is you get players that ultimately, and rightly so, end up playing for themselves because they’re playing for the next selection. Well, you can’t create an environment like that. You create an environment through stability. And that’s where the best times, you know, I look at the times very fondly back from 2016 to 2019. The one thing we tried to create with that group was consistency. And that was consistency around selection, consistency around a brand of cricket we wanted to play, and then the trust factor stayed within the team. It was clear, it was honest communication that every player got in terms of roles, in terms of where they sat. And that breeds success. Inconsistency, unfortunately, doesn’t breed success. But that is no excuse at all. The fact is, we haven’t played well enough. We finished fifth, and fifth is where we deserve to finish with the cricket that we’ve played over the last six weeks,” Mickey Arthur concluded.
