Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur reacts to their devastating 1 wicket defeat to South Africa in the closest game of the ICC Cricket World Cup so far
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00:00 that you are recognized.
00:01 We will be taking one question from every journalist.
00:05 And these, if a question has been asked,
00:08 do not refrigerate so we can take maximum questions.
00:10 Pezan, we'll start with you.
00:13 OK.
00:14 I mean, so near yet so far.
00:17 How would you assess this situation?
00:19 What is not happening with our team?
00:23 What's going wrong?
00:24 I mean, it's just hard to digest, hard to understand.
00:27 I mean, we were a world class team a couple of months
00:31 back and now.
00:33 Yeah, look, I mean, to be brutally honest,
00:35 we haven't put together the perfect game yet.
00:38 So we haven't-- I don't think we've batted well enough yet
00:40 as a unit.
00:42 I think that pitch, certainly par on that pitch is 300,
00:47 at least.
00:48 So we haven't put together enough runs.
00:52 And then we haven't put together a bowling performance
00:54 that goes with it.
00:55 So tonight, I thought, was our best bowling performance
00:57 of the competition.
01:00 Thought we bowled really well, but I still
01:02 thought we were under par in terms of the runs that we had.
01:08 So we haven't put the perfect game together yet.
01:10 And we've been-- hasn't been for lack of effort,
01:13 hasn't been for lack of trying.
01:15 But we just haven't got enough players in form at the minute,
01:19 particularly with the bat.
01:22 Mickey?
01:23 Yeah.
01:25 Yeah, tough luck on the result.
01:28 Two defeats in Chennai, but how much energy
01:30 did you draw from that crowd?
01:32 Yeah, the crowd was outstanding tonight.
01:34 It was really good.
01:36 Take the results out the way.
01:39 Chennai's been outstanding.
01:41 Training facilities, everything has been brilliant.
01:44 And the crowd tonight was fantastic.
01:47 And I think at least we've kind of given the World Cup
01:49 the close finish that it needed to sort of kick start it on.
01:54 It's just a pity we were on the wrong side of that.
01:57 Mickey, you had your number one rank side not too long ago.
02:01 And you had played a lot of matches
02:03 against New Zealand at home.
02:04 Did all of it put together sort of hide the holes in the team,
02:07 especially on the batting front?
02:09 Was it like-- did it make it too complicit
02:10 when coming to the World Cup?
02:12 Yeah, look, I think at a World Cup,
02:14 you've got to be playing your best game at the right time.
02:18 Our form had sort of drifted off a little bit.
02:21 And there's various--
02:23 we talk about it every day as to what it could have been.
02:26 But our form kind of drifted off.
02:29 And again, we haven't put the perfect game together.
02:32 We've batted well.
02:33 We haven't bowled well.
02:34 I do think our fielding standards have been average.
02:37 So there's a lot of work that we need
02:40 to put in to manage and get to the standards required
02:45 to win a World Cup.
02:47 But those are the things we talk about every day.
02:49 Those are the things when we go to the training ground,
02:51 we train every day.
02:54 We want to work to world-class standards, which we
02:58 do in terms of our preparation.
03:00 Again, form just hasn't allowed us opportunity
03:03 to put the perfect game together.
03:06 Mickey, when your team plays as competitively as they did
03:10 tonight, and they've lost the three previous games,
03:14 and they give it everything, and they still go down,
03:17 how do you get them off the floor?
03:18 Yeah, look, tonight is a totally different feeling
03:23 in that dressing room to the Afghanistan game.
03:26 The Afghanistan game was--
03:28 we were average in all departments.
03:31 Tonight, we were OK with the bats.
03:33 I thought we were very good with the ball.
03:35 And tonight, I'm really proud of those
03:40 because they fought right to the bitter end.
03:43 We were below par with the bat, I think.
03:46 As I said, I thought 300 was the par score.
03:51 But our bowlers have given us a real chance there,
03:53 and they've given it everything.
03:55 So it's a really disappointing dressing room.
04:00 But our players, I know we can be proud of tonight
04:04 because they've left everything on the ground.
04:07 They've given it their best shot.
04:09 And that's all you can ask.
04:11 Mickey, there is still hope Pakistan reach second final?
04:15 You never know.
04:17 What I do know is that we need to go and assess combinations
04:23 again.
04:24 We need to have a look at the holes we have within our team.
04:27 We need to start improving in a lot of areas.
04:34 And we've got to go home and finish this tournament
04:37 with three victories.
04:40 That's what I do know.
04:42 Every day we'll be trying, we'll be striving to do that.
04:47 Hi, Mickey.
04:49 So about your batting, the batters did get the start,
04:53 but they couldn't carry the momentum too far ahead.
04:58 And as you said, it was a 300 wicket.
05:01 Considering the situation in the 42nd over, you were at 250.
05:06 And 50 more runs would have surely taken you.
05:09 But what exactly went wrong?
05:12 Did the pitch play the tricks, or did the South Africans
05:14 bowl really well?
05:15 No, it was a mixture of both.
05:17 I don't think we batted particularly well
05:19 at the back end.
05:21 But we always set ourselves up to have--
05:25 you've got to have one of your top four in at over 40.
05:29 And that, you talk about the success
05:32 that we've had over the last year.
05:34 We've had one of our top four generally getting hundreds.
05:40 We've had 200 this competition so far in the same game.
05:45 So we've had players get in, we've had players get starts.
05:48 We haven't had players go through.
05:50 And I thought, I don't think we managed the last five overs
05:55 particularly well tonight.
05:57 There was still-- at one point in the 45th over,
06:02 I remember saying to the dressing room,
06:04 a runner ball gets us 295.
06:07 A runner ball gets us 295, and a little bit more
06:10 would have got us 300.
06:11 I know we would have defended 300 tonight.
06:13 So I thought, I don't think we managed that back end
06:17 particularly well at all.
06:18 And we left 10, 12 balls out there that we didn't face.
06:25 Mickey, I don't know whether you are superstitious,
06:27 but on this day last year, you lost to Zimbabwe
06:30 by one run in World T20.
06:32 Today, you lost by one wicket.
06:33 Are you still hopeful that you will go on to reach the final?
06:37 Well, I was actually watching that game.
06:40 I wasn't coaching.
06:40 I was in Perth then.
06:43 Yeah, look, as I say, we've just got to put our best foot forward.
06:47 I'm the first one to stand here, and I
06:50 don't think we've played well enough at this World Cup.
06:53 I don't think we've had enough form.
06:56 I don't think we've gelled completely as a unit yet.
06:59 And there are some holes in the team that have been exposed,
07:02 and we need to look at those.
07:06 And we need to fill them, and we need to bounce back very quickly.
07:11 And we need to play to our potential in the next three games.
07:14 Mickey, before this match, PCP had started
07:18 to put blames on chief selector in Zimbabwe, Captain Barbara Azzam.
07:23 You think accountability investigation will follow,
07:26 and who to blame for this?
07:28 They're going to be blaming everybody.
07:30 Don't worry.
07:30 It's just the way of the world.
07:33 Yeah, look, it's unfair.
07:35 It's really unfair to start a witch hunt, certainly on Barbara Azzam,
07:40 on Enzi, on our coaches, on the management team.
07:44 What I do know is the boys have tried, and the effort of the coaching staff,
07:50 the effort of the players has been first class.
07:56 If they would see the amount of effort that the players and staff put in,
08:03 they'd be amazed.
08:05 All right, thank you.
08:06 Mickey, thank you.
08:07 Pleasure, pleasure.
08:09 [INAUDIBLE]