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Pakistan Director of Cricket Mickey Arthur post-match press conference
[Reporter:]
2019 - fifth position, 2023, fifth position. What went wrong?
[Mickey Arthur:]
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, we get Naseem Shah, I think we miss Nasseem Shah. But if you get Naseem Shah, our bowling attack's good. 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-on-one player.
[Reporter:]
Now like the World Cup is obviously over, things must be about moving forward from here. But to move forward or to have long-term plans, there needs to be consistency, there needs to be some kind of stability. And it's like an open secret how the PCB is being run nowadays. So how can you look forward to a long-term thing with all those things going behind the scenes?
[Mickey Arthur:]
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.
[Reporter:]
Pakistan cricket is very strange and there are consequences after every failure. You ready to face the consequences?
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, look, I'll just go back to the peak district in Derbyshire, I'll be really happy and that'll be okay.
No, as I said, I came in to do this directors 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. 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.
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, the one thing we know, Haris Rauf doesn't normally bowl with a new ball. When you lose Naseem Shah, you have to find somebody to bowl with a new ball. We've been working hard on him with a new ball, but he bowled okay in patches. But we saw when he came on, he bowled seven overs for 34, three for 34. When he bowls with an older ball, that's what he's used to. So yeah, it's not an excuse. Our bowling equilibrium was out of kilter because Naseem Shah provides the consistency, whereas it allows Shaheen Shah to attack, and then you can attack with your leg spinner and you attack with Harris Rauf.
So, the equilibrium was upset but that is no excuse at all because quite frankly we haven't played well enough. We haven't bowled well enough at times. We haven't batted well enough at times. We haven't been as consistent as we have to be in order for us to progress to a semi-final and a final. And that is the fact of it.
We can't hide behind that.
[Reporter:]
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.
[Reporter:]
You spoke about giving players such an environment. Do you think somewhere in the tournament, we did not get that environment which was required and some sort of external factors affected these performance? I mean all the news that were coming while he was in Bangalore that that particular fact?
[Mickey Arthur:]
There's always outside noise, whatever world cup you're at there's outside noise. The key for us as leaders within that group is to make sure that we make the players deaf to that outside noise. As I say, for us as a group and us as a team, particularly for us as leaders, we've got to create a stable environment. Again, where I say our consistent messaging, our messaging has to be consistent, our environment has to be consistent and stable, because only then do you get players that grow. 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.
[Reporter:]
Even at the Asia Cup and right through this tournament, we have seen that Pakistan's spinners couldn't quite take the number of wickets. And today we saw some confused batting against spin as well, charging, sweeping and failure to pick some straighter ones and googly. So, considering the rich history of Pakistan in playing spin as well as bowling spin, do you think that was a bit of a letdown through this tournament?
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, look, it would be unfair of me to pigeonhole that as a criticism. And the spinners would be the first to say they probably haven't bowled as a group as well as they could have. And that's a work on for us. Our brand of cricket, the way we play our cricket, requires us to have two spinners playing and a third one as your sixth or seventh.
I think Shadab today arguably was his best spell for a long time. I saw the ball fizzing, I saw the revs on the ball, I saw the dippy he managed to get. That's the best he's bowled over a period of time. We've got to keep encouraging that.
[Reporter:]
You are one of the modern-day coaches right now, but we see our batters didn't play attacking cricket, modern day cricket which deserve to be in this tournament like this. Even in the Netherlands match and even in Bangladesh matches we didn't take care of the net run rate which we eventually had now had a problem. So, do you think that net run rate is a cause of issue for the Pakistan team and the batters?
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, look, I'll beg to differ with you. I think we won the Bangladesh game in 30 overs. We won that in 30 overs because of the net run rate. Albeit that perhaps we could have done it from game one and you've got a point. It wasn't through messaging; I can assure you of that. It wasn't through us not challenging our batsmen every day to grow, not challenging our batsmen to be a 330 or 350 team. We challenge them every day to do that because that's where the game's gone to. As I said earlier, the top four teams in this competition are all playing that way. We have to be able to play that way in order to compete. The players know that, we know that as coaches, we give those messages every day. We challenge them in the nets to do that every day. So, it hasn't gone unnoticed, Usman, and we're certainly, certainly trying to do that.
[Reporter:]
2019 - fifth position, 2023, fifth position. What went wrong?
[Mickey Arthur:]
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, we get Naseem Shah, I think we miss Nasseem Shah. But if you get Naseem Shah, our bowling attack's good. 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-on-one player.
[Reporter:]
Now like the World Cup is obviously over, things must be about moving forward from here. But to move forward or to have long-term plans, there needs to be consistency, there needs to be some kind of stability. And it's like an open secret how the PCB is being run nowadays. So how can you look forward to a long-term thing with all those things going behind the scenes?
[Mickey Arthur:]
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.
[Reporter:]
Pakistan cricket is very strange and there are consequences after every failure. You ready to face the consequences?
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, look, I'll just go back to the peak district in Derbyshire, I'll be really happy and that'll be okay.
No, as I said, I came in to do this directors 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. 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.
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, the one thing we know, Haris Rauf doesn't normally bowl with a new ball. When you lose Naseem Shah, you have to find somebody to bowl with a new ball. We've been working hard on him with a new ball, but he bowled okay in patches. But we saw when he came on, he bowled seven overs for 34, three for 34. When he bowls with an older ball, that's what he's used to. So yeah, it's not an excuse. Our bowling equilibrium was out of kilter because Naseem Shah provides the consistency, whereas it allows Shaheen Shah to attack, and then you can attack with your leg spinner and you attack with Harris Rauf.
So, the equilibrium was upset but that is no excuse at all because quite frankly we haven't played well enough. We haven't bowled well enough at times. We haven't batted well enough at times. We haven't been as consistent as we have to be in order for us to progress to a semi-final and a final. And that is the fact of it.
We can't hide behind that.
[Reporter:]
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.
[Reporter:]
You spoke about giving players such an environment. Do you think somewhere in the tournament, we did not get that environment which was required and some sort of external factors affected these performance? I mean all the news that were coming while he was in Bangalore that that particular fact?
[Mickey Arthur:]
There's always outside noise, whatever world cup you're at there's outside noise. The key for us as leaders within that group is to make sure that we make the players deaf to that outside noise. As I say, for us as a group and us as a team, particularly for us as leaders, we've got to create a stable environment. Again, where I say our consistent messaging, our messaging has to be consistent, our environment has to be consistent and stable, because only then do you get players that grow. 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.
[Reporter:]
Even at the Asia Cup and right through this tournament, we have seen that Pakistan's spinners couldn't quite take the number of wickets. And today we saw some confused batting against spin as well, charging, sweeping and failure to pick some straighter ones and googly. So, considering the rich history of Pakistan in playing spin as well as bowling spin, do you think that was a bit of a letdown through this tournament?
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, look, it would be unfair of me to pigeonhole that as a criticism. And the spinners would be the first to say they probably haven't bowled as a group as well as they could have. And that's a work on for us. Our brand of cricket, the way we play our cricket, requires us to have two spinners playing and a third one as your sixth or seventh.
I think Shadab today arguably was his best spell for a long time. I saw the ball fizzing, I saw the revs on the ball, I saw the dippy he managed to get. That's the best he's bowled over a period of time. We've got to keep encouraging that.
[Reporter:]
You are one of the modern-day coaches right now, but we see our batters didn't play attacking cricket, modern day cricket which deserve to be in this tournament like this. Even in the Netherlands match and even in Bangladesh matches we didn't take care of the net run rate which we eventually had now had a problem. So, do you think that net run rate is a cause of issue for the Pakistan team and the batters?
[Mickey Arthur:]
Yeah, look, I'll beg to differ with you. I think we won the Bangladesh game in 30 overs. We won that in 30 overs because of the net run rate. Albeit that perhaps we could have done it from game one and you've got a point. It wasn't through messaging; I can assure you of that. It wasn't through us not challenging our batsmen every day to grow, not challenging our batsmen to be a 330 or 350 team. We challenge them every day to do that because that's where the game's gone to. As I said earlier, the top four teams in this competition are all playing that way. We have to be able to play that way in order to compete. The players know that, we know that as coaches, we give those messages every day. We challenge them in the nets to do that every day. So, it hasn't gone unnoticed, Usman, and we're certainly, certainly trying to do that.
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