Bengaluru: Pakistan’s chances of entering the World Cup semifinals hangs by a slim thread, and Director of Cricket Mickey Arthur on Friday made a blunt assessment of his side’s performance terming it well below par. The former champions are in a must-win situation against New Zealand on Saturday and against England at Eden Gardens on November 11, and they also need some other results to go their way to reach the last four stage.
“I’ll be brutally honest. I don’t think we’ve played to our full potential in this tournament. I thought the Bangladesh game (on October 31 at Kolkata) is the first game where we actually put a complete game together. I just hope that’s not too late for us,” remarked Arthur during the pre-match press conference. Arthur said not being able to strike a balance between the three faculties of the game batting, bowling and fielding has been the bane of Pakistan in this tournament.
“We batted beautifully, bowled beautifully, and fielded beautifully (against Bangladesh), which in all the other games, we’ve done one or two disciplines OK, but our other disciplines let us down.
“So, I’d like to think we’re peaking, but the preparation and attitude of the guys will get better every day, that has been exceptional. I can’t fault anybody in terms of that,” he said.
From the outside, a lot of people have been trying to find a parallel between Pakistan’s run in this World Cup and the one they had under Imran Khan in 1992, where they survived heart-stopping moments to emerge champions.
However, Arthur did not buy that comparison or historical coincidence.
“Everybody tells me it’s the classic (Pakistan) World Cup campaign. I hate that, because I’d rather say that we were cruising as it would certainly be a lot less stressful,” he said.
However, Arthur believed that his side was still in control of their fate in the showpiece.
“We got ourselves into a position before the Bangladesh game where it was kind of out of our hands. It’s come back in a funny way into our hands albeit we’ve to win big in both our games. It’s still in our control.
“Then South Africa did us a little bit of a favour (beating New Zealand). So, it’s kind of pushed it back into our hands, albeit a long shot,” he added.
Arthur said the calmness of Pakistan players under such a stressful scenario has helped their cause a long way despite him being a bit edgy on
occasions.