Pakistan director or cricket Mickey Arthur reflects on their ICC World Cup campaign after defeat to England
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00:00 Mickey, 2019, fifth position, 2023, fifth position.
00:04 What went wrong?
00:06 I don't think we played our best game here.
00:08 I think-- I really believe the best four teams
00:13 in the competition are now playing the semifinal.
00:16 I think what we've seen is that--
00:20 and it's something that we've continually tried to push--
00:23 is that we're behind the eight ball.
00:26 Our game needs to go to another level.
00:28 It needs to go to another--
00:30 our bowling attack, we get Nassim Shah.
00:32 I think we missed Nassim Shah.
00:34 But if you get Nassim Shah, our bowling attack's good.
00:37 Batting-wise, we have to become a 330, 350 team.
00:40 The teams that are doing that and doing that consistently
00:43 are the teams that are in the semifinal.
00:47 And I don't think we've done that consistently enough.
00:50 We do that when Fakir Zaman comes off.
00:53 And we can't just be relying on one player.
00:58 Hi, Mickey.
01:00 Now the World Cup is obviously over.
01:03 Things must be about moving forward from here.
01:06 But to move forward or to have long-term plans,
01:10 there needs to be consistency.
01:12 There needs to be some kind of stability.
01:14 And it's an open secret how the PCB is being run nowadays.
01:17 So how can you look forward to a long-term thing
01:23 with all those things going behind the scenes?
01:26 Look, we know.
01:27 We've planned.
01:28 We know exactly where we need to go to.
01:31 We need to know what we need to do.
01:33 Planning's already started.
01:34 We're a long way down the line with our test
01:37 planning for Australia.
01:39 But ultimately, we can only control what we can.
01:43 What we can control is how we prepare our players.
01:47 What we control is the messaging that we give to our players.
01:50 We can't control anything else.
01:55 What will be will be in that regard.
01:57 But we've got to stay consistent.
02:00 We've got a very impressionable young group of players now.
02:04 There's some very good young players
02:07 who are going to have big careers.
02:09 We need to just keep preaching them the right messaging.
02:13 We've got to stay consistent, stay
02:14 consistent around our selection, stay
02:17 consistent around our messaging, and allow
02:19 those guys an environment which allows them to play and play
02:23 to the best of their ability.
02:26 Mickey, Pakistan cricket is very strange.
02:28 And there are consequences after every failure.
02:32 You ready to face the consequences?
02:34 Yeah, look, I'll just go back to the peak district in Derbyshire.
02:37 I'll be really--
02:39 that'll be OK.
02:40 No, as I say, I came in to do this directive job, obviously,
02:45 in conjunction with Derbyshire, because I care a hell of a lot
02:49 for that dressing room, because I care for Pakistan cricket.
02:52 Pakistan cricket is very close to my heart.
02:55 And that was the reason that when Mr. Seti came calling,
02:58 I did it, was because I want to give stability.
03:03 I want to give the structure.
03:05 I want the players to be able to grow up
03:07 in an environment that's consistent and stable,
03:10 outside of all the ramblings and the noise that goes on.
03:14 We owe it to those players.
03:17 As I say, there's some very young players
03:19 who get affected by all the ramifications of what
03:23 goes on on the outside.
03:25 As I say, we've just got to stay consistent for them,
03:27 because it's their careers.
03:29 And there's some very fine players there.
03:31 Andrew?
03:33 [INAUDIBLE]
03:35 If you think-- you mentioned nothing sharp,
03:37 as well as you are [INAUDIBLE]
03:38 Yeah.
03:39 There's only a little bit of disappointment
03:41 at the type of penetration in certain matches
03:44 and the tournament that maybe goes for runs.
03:48 [INAUDIBLE]
03:50 Yeah.
03:55 The one thing we know, that Harris Rolfe doesn't normally
03:58 bowl with the new ball.
04:00 But when you lose Nassim Shah, you
04:03 have to find somebody to bowl with the new ball.
04:05 We've been working hard on him with the new ball.
04:08 But he bowled OK in patches.
04:11 But we saw when he came on, he bowled seven overs for 34,
04:14 three for 34.
04:15 When he bowls with an older ball,
04:17 that's what he's used to.
04:18 So yeah, it's not an excuse.
04:20 Our bowling equilibrium was out of kilter,
04:25 because Nassim Shah provides the consistency,
04:29 whereas it allows Shane Shah to attack.
04:35 And then you can attack with your leg spinner,
04:37 and you attack with Harris Rolfe.
04:40 So the equilibrium was upset.
04:43 But that is no excuse at all, because quite frankly, we
04:46 haven't played well enough.
04:49 We haven't bowled well enough at times.
04:51 We haven't batted well enough in times.
04:53 We haven't been as consistent as we
04:55 have to be in order for us to progress
04:57 to a semifinal and a final.
05:00 And that is the fact of it.
05:02 We can't hide behind that.
05:04 Matt.
05:06 Matt.
05:06 [INAUDIBLE]
05:07 Oh, look.
05:16 I mean, we were real tight in the units.
05:21 I get behind Bob.
05:23 Bob is very, very close to me.
05:26 He's a young guy that needs to be taken on the journey with.
05:32 He needs to be shown the ropes.
05:34 He's still learning all the time.
05:36 We know he's a very, very fine batsman.
05:39 He learns every day with his captaincy.
05:42 He's growing.
05:43 And we have to allow him the time to go.
05:47 And in order to do that, you make mistakes.
05:50 Everybody-- it's not a crime to make mistakes, as long
05:54 as you learn from those mistakes.
05:56 And as a group, we've made a lot of mistakes this World Cup.
06:00 But if this group grows and learns from it,
06:02 we've got the core of a very, very good side.
06:05 You spoke about giving players such an environment.
06:11 Do you think somewhere in the tournament,
06:15 we did not get that environment which was required?
06:17 And some sort of external factors
06:20 affected these performance?
06:22 I mean, all the news that were coming
06:25 while the team was in Bangalore, that particular fact?
06:29 There's always outside noise.
06:31 Whatever World Cup you're at, there's outside noise.
06:34 The key for us as leaders within that group
06:37 is to make sure that we make the players deaf
06:41 to that outside noise.
06:42 As I say, for us as a group and us as a team,
06:46 particularly for us as leaders, we've
06:48 got to create a stable environment.
06:51 Again, where I say our consistent messaging.
06:54 Our messaging has to be consistent.
06:55 Our environment has to be consistent and stable.
06:58 Because only then do you get players that grow.
07:04 If the environment is unstable, what you find
07:07 is you get players that ultimately, and rightly so,
07:10 end up playing for themselves because they're playing
07:12 for the next selection.
07:14 Well, you can't create an environment like that.
07:17 You create an environment through stability.
07:20 And that's where the best times--
07:22 I look at the times very fondly back from 2016 to 2019.
07:28 The one thing we tried to create with that group
07:31 was consistency.
07:32 And that was consistency around selection,
07:35 consistency around a brand of cricket we wanted to play,
07:38 and then the trust factor stayed within the team.
07:42 It was clear.
07:43 It was honest communication that every player
07:46 got in terms of roles, in terms of where they sat.
07:49 And that breeds success.
07:51 Inconsistency, unfortunately, doesn't breed success.
07:56 But that is no excuse at all.
07:58 The fact is we haven't played well enough.
08:00 We finished fifth.
08:02 And fifth is where we deserve to finish with the cricket
08:06 that we've played over the last six weeks.
08:10 Yeah.
08:11 Even at the Asia Cup and right through this tournament,
08:13 we have seen that Pakistan's spinners couldn't quite
08:16 take the number of wickets.
08:18 And today, we saw some confused batting against spinners,
08:21 while charging, sweeping, and failure
08:23 to pick some straighter ones and googly.
08:25 So considering the rich history of Pakistan in playing spin
08:28 as well as bowling spin, do you think
08:29 that was a bit of a letdown through this tournament?
08:33 Yeah, look, it would be unfair of me
08:36 to pigeonhole that as a criticism.
08:41 And the spinners would be the first to say they probably
08:44 haven't bowled as a group as well as they could have.
08:49 And that's a work on for us.
08:51 Our brand of cricket, the way we play our cricket,
08:53 requires us to have two spinners playing and a third one
08:58 as your sixth or seventh.
09:00 I think Shadab today arguably was
09:03 his best spell for a long time.
09:05 I saw the ball fizzing.
09:06 I saw the revs on the ball.
09:08 I saw the dippy he managed to get.
09:11 That's the best he's bowled over a period of time.
09:14 We've got to keep encouraging that.
09:16 [INAUDIBLE]
09:21 [INAUDIBLE]
09:24 Mickey, this is Usman Khan from Harm News Television.
09:27 You are one of the modern day coaches right now.
09:30 But we see our batters didn't play attacking cricket,
09:34 modern day cricket, which deserve to be
09:37 in this tournament like this.
09:39 Even in the Netherland match and even in Bangladesh matches,
09:43 we didn't take care of the net run rate, which we eventually
09:47 had now had a problem.
09:49 So do you think that net run rate
09:51 is a cause of issue for the Pakistan team and the batters?
09:54 Yeah, look, I'll beg to differ with you.
09:55 I think we won the Bangladesh game in 30 overs.
09:59 We won that in 30 overs because of the net run rate.
10:02 I'll bet that perhaps we could have done it from game one.
10:04 And you've got a point.
10:06 It wasn't through messaging.
10:08 I can assure you of that.
10:09 It wasn't through us not challenging our batsmen
10:14 every day to grow, not challenging our batsmen
10:17 to be a 330 or 350 team.
10:20 We challenge them every day to do that because that's
10:23 where the game's gone to.
10:25 As I said earlier, the top four teams in this competition
10:28 are all playing that way.
10:30 We have to be able to play that way in order to compete.
10:36 The players know that.
10:37 We know that as coaches.
10:39 We give those messages every day.
10:41 We challenge them in the nets to do that every day.
10:45 So it hasn't gone unnoticed, Usman.
10:48 And we're certainly, certainly trying to do that.
10:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]