Cardiff: Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur would like everyone to predict Pakistan will win the Champions Trophy semi-final against England.
Because he hates Pakistan being tagged as an unpredictable team.
“I don’t want us to be unpredictable. As a head coach, you want the team to have structure. You want the consistency levels to be good. Unpredictability as a coaching staff.... we don’t like it. We’d like us to do the basics a hell of a lot better, day in and day out, and that’s what we train for every day. So we’re getting better. We’re making strides in that area.”
In fact, Arthur refuted his team’s skipper Sarfraz Ahmad’s remark before the start of the tournament that Pakistan has nothing to lose. “We can’t sugar coat that fact. We’ve got nothing to lose, yes, but we’ve always said we’re in it to win it. When we chatted last night at the end of the game, the last thing I wanted was for us to go away now thinking that we got to a semi-final, we’re okay with what we’ve achieved, because that would be a cop-out in my mind. We certainly want to come out and put our best game forward and win, and we want to go to London. We’ve always said that. That’s been our mantra right from the start of this competition.”
Pakistan’s coach added: “We certainly didn’t want to be just making up the numbers in this competition, and we’ve shown that we weren’t. Now we need to go one step further and never be satisfied.”
Additionally, he is no longer bothered about comments like ‘sack the captain, coach and the support staff’ soon after a defeat. “We are used to it, to be honest. That happens anywhere in any country, more so in Pakistan, I’ve got to be honest. They’re very quick to judge. No, I mean, that’s par for the course. And you just hope that there’s some sense with the powers that be who know the journey we’re on. There is a lot of stuff written that is so far from the truth, and that it’s frightening sometimes.”
Arthur then went on to reveal how he pulled his team up after the shattering defeat to India. “We were written off totally, and probably rightly so after the Indian clash because we were shambolic. We were terrible. It’s just shown the resolve the players have had and certainly the belief that myself as coach has in our boys. I’m incredibly proud of how we pulled ourselves off the canvas after India, and I’m incredibly proud of some of the honest discussions we’ve had as a unit and as a team because that for me has shown maturity — maturity beyond the years of the team, and that stands us in good stead going forward.”
