ICC World Cup 2019 | Mickey Arthur wants ICC to take head-to-head into consideration instead of net run-rate

Pakistan bounced back emphatically in the last four games, winning all of them to end up with 11 points in their kitty alongside New Zealand. Coach Mickey Arthur has urged the ICC to give head-to-head record more importance instead of net run rate. 

“I would have liked the ICC to consider head to head because tonight we would be in the semi-final. It is disappointing, and it just goes back to our first game (a heavy defeat) against the West Indies,” Mickey Arthur said, IANS reported. 

“We had an opportunity to beat Australia and we didn’t take that. Those are the two nightmares I’m going to have,” he added.

Pakistan needed to win their final game of the group league stages against Bangladesh by a massive margin which wasn’t humanly possible in order to better New Zealand’s net run rate. Pakistan’s first defeat against West Indies cost them heavily in the end as they struggled to recover in terms of net run-rate from there on.   

“What the system has done to us is that after one very poor game, you really battle to recover again. So it’s a very disappointed dressing room, no congratulations going on because we haven’t qualified. Congratulations to the four who have, I think they’ve played the best cricket so far and may the best team win. But it is nice for us to sit here and know we’ve beaten two of those teams [England and New Zealand] which shows we’re not a mile off in terms of ourselves as a cricket team.