LAHORE   -   Pakistan cricket team head coach Mickey Arthur has said that defeat has a lesson server in many ways as it helped in discovering team’s weakness ahead of the World Cup.

Addressing the press conference here on Tuesday on the return of the team from UAE, Arthur said: “We rested senior players to encourage young blood in the team as back up and we are confident to come up with a good combination for the World Cup.”

The head coach termed national team’s whitewash at the hands of Australia as ‘disappointing’ but said that impressive display by some youngsters was positive aspect of the series. “A defeat is always painful and we hate losing as a team while losing with that wide margin of 5-0 was hard and unfortunate.”

He said another factor which contributed to team’s dismal show was that it was not the ‘best Pakistan team’ which played against Australia, mentioning the absence of key players who were rested ahead of the World Cup being played this summer in England and Wales.

The coach said apart from looking into the darker aspect of the team’s loss, the bright side of picture is the brilliant performance of opener Abid Ali and rookie pacer Mohammad Hasnain and batsman Muhammad Rizwan.

“Abid impressed with his batting skills and technique and he played too good innings, he has the hunger to score runs and wants to represent Pakistan,” he said while highlighting the unique feat of the 31-year old batsman, who scored century in his debut against Australia. “Hasnain got talent and we need to groom him to be a useful part of the team,” he added.

He made it clear that Sarfraz Ahmed remains the team’s first-choice wicketkeeper and he is the captain of the team and said it is the need of hour to give Asif confidence to bat at number six place in batting order. “Asif has potential and talent and we need to develop him to bat in middle (number six) to strengthen our batting line up,” he added.

“If we analyze team’s performance, we can notice a few brilliant individual performances on part of Mohammad Rizwan, Abid and Husnain and it is good to see that Haris Sohail has also improved in batting and we are confident that our batting will perform better in the World Cup,” he said.

Replying to a query, the head coach said that with the return of senior players into the squad, the combination of experience and youth can be beneficial for Pakistan in the Cup on the conditions in England. He said the team management is clear regarding our World Cup squad and the preparations for the Cup and pointed out that the bowlers need to work really hard to lift the level of their bowling as they struggled in the last overs of the play against Australia.

“I think we will be able to field a good combination in the Cup as we will be playing as many as 11 matches ahead of team’s participation in the mega event,” he said adding, “Fitness is our top most priority and all the players have to maintain top level of fitness to be a useful part of the team in the Cup and there will be no compromise on fitness of any player, no matter how big he is in status.”

Arthur said the World Cup porbables will have to undergo fitness test on April 14 and the camp will start on April 16 or 17. “In a few days time, we will sit with the selection committee to review the performance of the players to finalize the squad,” he added.

He admitted that pace bowler Muhammad Amir was going through a bad patch and he is not taking wickets but he termed him a match-winning bowler of highest caliber with skills and technique and expressed the hope that he will be make a comeback by regaining lost form.

He expressed his disappointment on the form of Umar Akmal who piled up runs in the Pakistan Super League but could not impress in the series against Australia and failed to play a big knock. “I was informed by the media manager about the incident,” he said on the latest disciplinary violation of Umar and described such attitude on part of a player, a worry for the team management,” he said and added: “Spinner Yasir Shah has been embarrassed on his singing video which has been viral on the social media.”