Mickey Arthur: “We will dust ourselves off and come back strongly”

Image courtesy of: Zimbio

Pakistan head coach Mickey Arthur has vowed that his side will bounce back from their dismal performance in their World Cup opener against the West Indies.

Pakistan were skittled out for 105 after being put in to bat first and the West Indies proceeded to win the match by seven wickets with 218 balls to spare.

Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam were the top scorers as they both made 22 runs, while Wahab Riaz chipped in with a quickfire 18 at the end.

Mohammad Hafeez was the only other batsman to reach double figures as he made 16.

“Yes, it was a shocking start and batting…the players did not take the prep into the middle. But we will dust ourselves off and come back strongly,” he was quoted as saying by Geo.tv. “We knew that we [were] going to get short-pitched bowling and had prepared very well for it. So it was disappointing to see us play like that.

Pakistan’s next World Cup match will be against England in Nottingham on Monday, where they will be looking for revenge after losing 4-0 to the World Cup hosts in their recent five-match ODI series.

“We know how good England are but we know them and are battle-hardened against them,” Arthur said. “We have assessed what went wrong and will continue to work on those things.”

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