The fielding standards have simply not been met: Mickey Arthur

Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur has lashed out at his Pakistan side following their loss against Australians in the Sydney Cricket Ground in the penultimate ODI of the series, something that saw the Pakistanis lost. The Asian giants were simply outrageous on the evening in terms of the fielding performance put up by the players on the day.

While Pakistan would go on and suffer a massive defeat, it was quite clear that Arthur is outraged and this outrage saw the South African speak a few strong words on the performance of his side.

“We just can’t give chances like that,” Arthur said after the loss, which gave Australia an unbeatable 3-1 series lead. “It’s unacceptable. Certainly, the standards we set for this cricket team haven’t been met in the field. So that’s really disappointing.

“(Dropped catches) allows them to push out at the back end. Maxwell should have been out, Head should have been out, which meant that we would have had two new batsmen there all the time. Those are the kinds of things we just can’t afford to do. If we want to get to where we want to get to in terms of rankings, we just can’t make those errors.

“Had we taken those catches, those players wouldn’t have been at the wicket to take toll of those last couple of overs. Batting and bowling I can sit with tonight and take some positives out of it. Fielding (was) woeful and way below standard.”

He also revealed a few details on the team meeting he had with some of the players as well, “I said to the guys yesterday in our team meeting that I think Australia are 15-20 runs better than us in those departments … and tonight they were 50 runs better,” Arthur said. “And you just can’t compete if that’s the case. (I’m) incredibly frustrated. And it’s not through a lack of hard work; the guys have trained and trained and trained and somewhere between the training and going out on the ground, it’s seemed to get lost.

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“So we’ll just keep pursuing that and keep endeavoring to get better and better because we have to. The gap between the best sides in the world and where we sit at the moment is not great in terms of batting and bowling, but in terms of fielding, athleticism, fitness, running between the wickets, the gap is massive. Those are issues we continually talk about and continually train for, but we’re just going to have to do it harder and harder.”