Arthur urges PCB to stop ‘witch-hunt’ in wake of Pakistan’s poor run, backs team for strong comeback in CWC

Pakistan Cricket Team unlocked its worst record at the World Cups by losing their fourth straight game in this edition, this time to South Africa by just one wicket in Chennai the other night. Although unlike how they played in the matches before this, Pakistan were competitive and took the game to the wire, thanks to their seamers, but eventually fell shy of winning over the Proteas. Head coach Mickey Arthur shared his thoughts on an almost ‘perfect game’ for Pakistan, but first, he had a request for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

After Pakistan’s shocking defeat at the hands of Afghanistan at the same venue on Monday, PCB, in its efforts to curb the pressure on the team and the management, sent out a message for everyone, asking fans to support the team in this dark hour instead of criticising them.

Replying to the same, Arthur noted that despite the best efforts from everyone present inside the dressing room, the blame game, the ‘witch-hunt’ would begin. He urged the PCB to stop with it as Pakistan, mathematically, still has a chance of reaching the semis despite four losses in six matches.

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"They're going to be blaming everybody, don't worry. It's just the way of the world,” Arthur said during the post-match presentation after South Africa’s game.

"It's really unfair to start a witch-hunt, certainly on Babar Azam, on Inzi [chief selector, Inzamam-ul-Haq], on our coaches, on the management team."

"What I do know is the boys have tried, and the effort of the coaching staff, the effort of the players has been first-class. If they would see the amount of effort that the players and staff put in, they would be amazed," the head coach added.

You never know – Arthur on team’s semis chances

Realistically, Pakistan looks unlikely to reach the semis, but with numbers involved, they can. Outside of winning their remaining matches with better NRRs, the Pakistan Team will rely on several permutations and combinations that could help them reach the last four.

With their bowling clicking this late in their campaign, Pakistan would give themselves another chance to stay alive in the tournament.

Speaking on the same lines, Arthur sounded optimistic and said, still anything can happen in regards to Pakistan making it to the semis.

"You never know," Arthur said of their lingering knock-out hopes.

"What I do know is that we need to go and assess combinations again, we need to have a look at the holes we have within our team. We need to we need to start improving in a lot of areas, and we've got to go home and finish this tournament with three victories. That's what I do know. Every day we'll be trying, and we'll be striving to do that."

Pakistan’s next match is against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Tuesday (Oct 31).

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