We all are responsible for defeats in SA: Arthur

LAHORE: Pakistan cricket team’s head coach, Mickey Arthur expressed his disappointment over team’s defeats in Test, one day and T20 series during the tour of South Africa and said instead fixing its responsibility on anyone, everyone is responsible for the loses.“We all are responsible for team’s failure in the South African tour and no one should be held responsible for that,” he told media at a news conference here on Friday at the Gaddafi Stadium after the return of the team from a dismal tour of South Africa.“We need to bring improvement in our test squad and to perform well on tough conditions which were challenging in South Africa,” he added. “No South Asian team has so far won test series against South Africa and the tour of South Africa is always difficult and tough for every Asian team and unfortunately Pakistan team suffered losses in all three formats of the game despite putting up good fight,” he added.Pak team official while analysing the performance of the team in the Test matches said apart from three players of the team which played the test matches, rest were the newcomers and were visiting the South Africa for the first time.“Still I give credit to the South African team for showing good performance in the tour which was a way of learning for our players,” he said adding: “Despite our defeats in the tour the positive aspect is that our players have improved a lot in their respective departments of the game which was witnessed in the one day series and T20 matches”.The teams head coach mentioned that Pak players exhibited good performance against deadly attack of South Africa and the entire tour was a big learning for the team which is leaning and improving with each passing day as a part of its preparations for the World Cup being played this summer in England.He defended Sarfraz Ahmad in the role of captain and wicketkeeper saying: “ Sarfraz’s main responsibility is keeping which he is doing well and he dropped eight balls behind the stumps during the past four month”.“As a player Sarfraz is well aware of the fact of good or a bad patch and he is doing his best to lift his performance to rise to the occasion and I have no reservation on his performance,” he added.To a question he said Sarfraz’s remarks to a South African player were inappropriate and the matter is now over for once and all. “Our bowling will be our main weapon in the World Cup and we will make effort to add more fire in our pace battery by working on our bowlers,” Arthur concluded.

from The News International - Sports http://bit.ly/2I3TZl4