The fifth ODI at Adelaide concluded yet another miserable tour for Pakistan Down Under, as the Men in Green were slaughtered by the hosts. Things began in the three-match Test series, where Australia bossed the visitors from the very offset and whitewashed them without much off a fuss. Barring a couple of instances of individual glories, there was nothing worth mentioning for Pakistan in the Test series.
The ODIs were bound to pose an even greater challenge for Pakistan and that seems abundantly evident with a 4-1 series defeat. Throughout the series, Pakistani fielders were involved in comical dropped catches, where even school level practice catches were shelled. This aspect hasn’t gone down too well with Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s coach.
“Results-wise obviously it has been disappointing,” Arthur said. “We came here thinking we had a real chance, certainly in the Test matches. We are still a fledgling ODI side. There are some gaps in our ODI side that we need to work hard to fill for us. We’re ranked eighth at the moment and I think you could see the gap between eight and one. So we’ve got a lot of work to do in that regard.”
“Believe it or not, we have worked extremely hard at our fielding,” he added. “Me and my support staff have been around for seven months now. That has been our focus and priority. Fitness levels have improved dramatically in terms of our day-to-day reports but we’re way behind the rest of the pack.”
Arthur added that post the upcoming edition of Pakistan Super League, there would be greater focus upon fitness.
“So, fitness and fielding is again going to be total priority before we go to the West Indies. We will have time to have a camp after the PSL and we will put in a hell of a lot of work into it because we are just not up to the mark in those.
“With the ball and the bat we compete perfectly well. I think we saw the difference here. Davey Warner gets in and gets 170-odd today and he gets it very very quick. That is the difference between chasing 310 and 370-odd. Warner and our fielding has probably been the key difference between the teams,” he concluded.