Every News: Australia whitewash ‘painful’: Mickey Arthur

Australia whitewash ‘painful’: Mickey Arthur
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LAHORE: Pakistan cricket head coach Mickey Arthur has said the greenshirts’ whitewash at Australia’s hands “disappointing”, but insisted the impressive display by some of the young players are the positive aspects of the UAE series.“A defeat is always painful and we hate losing as a team and losing with that wide margin (5-0) was hard and unfortunate,” he said, while addressing a news conference on Tuesday on the team’s return from the UAE.Arthur said another factor which contributed to team’s dismal show against Australia was that it was not the “best Pakistan team”, mentioning the absence of key players who were rested ahead of this summer’s World Cup in England and Wales.“We rested senior players to encourage young blood in the team as back-up and we are confident to come up with a good combination for the cup,” said Arthur. Defeat has a served as a lesson in many ways as it helped in discovering team’s weakness ahead of the World Cup, he added.He said that apart from looking into the darker aspect of team’s loss, the bright side of picture is the brilliant performance of opener Abid Ali and rookie pacer Mohammad Hasnain and batsman Muhammad Rizwan.“Abid impressed with his batting skills and technique and he played too good innings, he has the hunger to score runs and wants to represent Pakistan,” he said while highlighting the unique feat of the 31-year-old batsman who scored a century in his ODI debut. “Hasnain’s got talent and we need to groom him to be a useful part of the team,” he added.He made it clear that Sarfraz Ahmed remains the team’s first-choice wicketkeeper and he is the captain of the team and said it is the need of hour to give Asif the confidence to bat at number six in batting order.“Asif has potential and talent and we need to develop him to bat in middle to strengthen our batting line up,” he added.“If we analyse teams performance we can notice few brilliant individual performances on part of Mohammad Rizwan, Abid and Hasnain and it is good to see that Haris Sohail has also improved in batting and we am confident that our batting will perform better in the World Cup,” he said.Answering a question the head coach said with the return of senior players into the squad the combination of experience and youth can be beneficial for Pakistan in the Cup on the conditions in England.He said: “The team management is clear regarding our World Cup squad and the preparations for the Cup and pointed out that bowlers need to work really hard to lift the level of their bowling as they struggled in the last overs of the play against Australia.“I think we will be able to field a good combination in the Cup as we will be playing as many as eleven matches ahead of teams participation in the event,” he said adding: “Fitness is our top-most priority and all the players have to maintain a top level of fitness to be a useful part of the team in the cup and there will be no compromise on fitness of any player, no matter how big he is in status.”Mickey Arthur said the World Cup prospects will have to undergo a fitness test on April 14 and the camp will start on April 16 or 17. “In a few days time we will sit with the selection committee to review the performance of the players to finalise the squad,” he added.He admitted that pace bowler Mohammad Amir was going through a “bad patch” and he is not taking wickets but termed him a “match-winning bowler of highest calibre” and expressed the hope he would make a comeback by regaining his lost form.He expressed his disappointment over the form of Umar Akmal, who piled up runs in the Pakistan Super League but could not impress in the series against Australia and failed to score a big knock.“I was informed by the media manager about the incident,” he said on the latest disciplinary violation of Umar and described such attitude on part of a player “a worry for the team management”, he said.