WELLINGTON: In a frank post-mortem after the 70-run loss in the first ODI, Pakistan’s batting coach Grant Flower said the visitors “didn’t use [their] brains” towards the end of New Zealand’s innings, in which 71 runs were plundered off the final five overs.
Those runs had largely come from New Zealand’s No. 9 and 10 batsmen, Mitchell McClenaghan and Matt Henry, who put on 73 together, before No. 11 Trent Boult edged the final ball of the innings through the vacant slip region.
Pakistan had used the short ball well, to have New Zealand 99-6 by the 23rd over.
“We didn’t use our brains at all towards the end,” he said. “Bowling yorkers is skill execution, and we didn’t do that. They played well at the end. The short ball worked to a certain extent, but we overdid it, and we didn’t learn and we just didn’t bowl enough yorkers.
“If we’re going to be honest we should have got them out for 200-odd, seeing the start we had.””You can get as many messages as you want out to the players, but it’s got to come from within,” Flower said. “It’s also executing your skills. If there’s a yorker to be bowled, you have to bowl it as a yorker, not a half volley.”
Flower didn’t confine his stern words to the bowlers. Pakistan’s batsmen had made a slow start to the chase of 281, making just 33 from the first 10 overs.
Flower felt they could have been more aggressive.
“Even though we should have got them out for a lot less, I still backed the guys to get the target. We lacked a bit of intent at the start and then we had quite a few soft wickets. We didn’t take advantage of a good batting track.”
New Zealand have now won 9 out of 11 completed limited-overs matches in their home summer. Pakistan, meanwhile, have lost three consecutive matches on tour, having begun with a comfortable T20 victory in Auckland.
“It doesn’t seem like we’re learning from our mistakes - that’s the disappointing part,” he said. “It’s one thing losing, but you’re paid to do a job and if you keep making the same mistakes, there are going to be questions asked.”
Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2016
