• Pakistan lost to South Africa in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
• Mickey Arthur admitted that the team has not been able to play up to its ability.
• Arthur defended the players and the coaching staff from criticism.

The Pakistani cricket team suffered yet another tournament loss on a depressing evening in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, this time at the hands of South Africa.

Fans and pundits were left perplexed by the defeat, asking what went wrong for a club that was regarded as elite only a few months prior.

The director of the Pakistan cricket team, Mickey Arthur, concurred during the post-match news conference following the team’s loss to South Africa that the team hasn’t been able to play up to its ability in the competition.

“Yeah, look to be brutally honest, we haven’t put together the perfect game yet. I don’t think we’ve batted well enough yet as a unit. I think that pitch, certainly par on that pitch, is 300 at least,” Arthur stated while admitting that Pakistan’s batting couldn’t put enough runs on the board against South Africa.

“We haven’t put together enough runs. And then we haven’t put together a bowling performance that goes with it. So tonight, I thought it was our best bowling performance of the competition. Thought we bowled really well, but I still thought we were under par in terms of the runs that we had,” Arthur lamented.

Arthur realized that the team needed to improve after considering their performance and their steady fall from the top spot.

“Yeah, look, I think at a World Cup, you’ve got to be playing your best game at the right time. Our form had sort of drifted off a little bit. And there are various reasons. We talk about it every day as to what it could have been. But our form kind of drifted off.”

Nevertheless, Arthur was proud of the team’s performance despite the loss to South Africa.

“It’s a really disappointed dressing room, and our players, I know, can be proud of tonight because they’ve given it their best shot. And that’s all you can ask.

When questioned about the team’s prospects for reaching the semi-finals, Arthur remained cautiously optimistic. “You never know. 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 start improving in a lot of areas, and we’ve got to go home and finish this tournament with three victories.”

Arthur also spoke about the batting issues, stressing how critical it is to turn strong starts into significant scores. We’ve had players get in. We’ve had players get started. We haven’t had players go through. And I thought, I don’t think we managed the last five overs particularly well tonight.”

In response to a query concerning the blame game that seems to have started back home after the team’s dismal performance in the competition, Arthur defended the players and the coaching staff. “It’s really unfair to start a witch hunt, certainly on Babar Azam, on Inzi [Inzamam], on our coaches, on the management team. What I do know is that the boys have tried, and the effort of the coaching staff, the effort of the players has been first-class.”

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