After Pakistan’s exit from the World Cup 2019 due to lower run rate than New Zealand, Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to give the head-to-head record a higher priority than 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.

“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.

On Friday, Pakistan needed to beat Bangladesh by a record margin in order to pip New Zealand on the basis of the net run rate and to qualify for semi-finals.

Batting first, the Green Brigade posted 315 for 9 and needed to bowl out Bangladesh for mere seven runs in order to get to the final 4. Though Pakistan eventually won the match, the winning margin of 94 runs could not serve their cause.

“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,” said Arthur.

“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.”

Talking about Pakistan’s strategy of getting to a big total like 400 while batting first, Arthur said, “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t discussed. But I think that was something that we could only assess once we did something right. The first 10 overs were expected to be quite crucial. You couldn’t have just walked in there and gone. I think we’re going to get 400. Getting 400 was a platform. You needed to get a good base, and you needed to move.”

“The message we got from Fakhar [Zaman] when he came back in the change room was it was slow. Balls going into the wicket were quite tough. We realised that getting the average score, I think, is 270 over the tournament. I mean, getting 400 was a bit of a pipe dream. And then we realised we just wanted to win and we wanted to win well,” said the coach.

(With inputs from IANS)