CHENNAI: The Pakis­tan squad is residing here in the comforts of the Leela Palace — a seven-star hotel loca­ted by the mouth of the Adyar River, that flows into the Bay of Bengal.

The setting would give one a feeling that the members of the Babar Azam-led side must be having a good time at such a luxurious facility as they undergo the Chennai leg of their World Cup campaign. But the truth is the other way round. Apart from sporadic trips to high-end restaurants in strict security bubbles, the players doesn’t move out of the hotel to get the air of the city.

Pakistan, both literally and figuratively, are gasping for air. Having comprehensively beaten the Netherlands and Sri Lanka to start off the tournament, the team has lost three games on the trot.

Their pursuit for the second World Cup trophy for the country began to roll downhill when they were thrashed by hosts India in front of a 120,000 crowd — partisan to the home side — at the massive Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

It broke Pakistan and a feeling of helplessness creeped into the side’s dressing room. The following game, against Australia at Bangaluru, saw them make mistake after another.Two days later, they fell to their first defeat against Afghanistan in ODIs.

Five matches played, three lost, four to go; Pakistan are in a position they wouldn’t have wished to be in, but that also means that they are in a place from where the only way is out.

And going out with their heads high, is exactly what Pakistan are aiming at as the business end of their campaign starts with the clash against South Africa here on Friday.

“I’d hate us getting to the end of the World Cup, playing within our abilities, and then thinking ‘I wish we had done this, I wish we had done that’,” Pakistan team director Mickey Arthur told Dawn in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

“That’s kind of where we have come from now, we don’t want any regrets. Win it, lose it, whatever it is, we have got to look each other in the eye and say ‘we have given it our best shot, we’ve left everything out there and we have no regrets in terms of how brave we were, with our brand of cricket, with our selections, whatever, we can’t have any regrets.”

Coming from a point of no return, Pakistan will have the liberty to try new things, and it is highly likely that the side will go with out-of-the-box strategies in the remainder of their campaign.

“We sit down and we look at every possible combination to win us games,” Arthur revealed. “We can obviously pick from the 15 players that we have selected before, and we’ll look at certain combinations.”

What can happen and what cannot, Arthur said, would be “interesting to see”.

The Pakistan players have come under heavy criticism for demonstrating poor form and application in all departments of the game in their defeats against India, Australia and Afghanistan. Dejected fans and former cricketers have bashed Pakistan, questioning the intent of the team’s players and coaches as well as their sincerity towards their job.

Arthur — driven by his “love and passion” for the country came to the players’ defence and shrugged off doubts over their motivation to do well for Pakistan.

“Let me just be honest, these players are outstanding, they train their hearts out, they work damn hard, they take the responsibilities very seriously,” he said. “…that dressing room after we lost against Afghanistan, was one of the toughest I have ever been in. The guys were absolutely distraught. So for anybody out there, who thinks that these guys don’t care, they just rough up and play a game of cricket, these guys are incredibly passionate about Pakistan.

“They want to make the nation proud. These guys are committed, they are focused and they are ready to do very, very well.”

But what brought Pakistan to this point? This was a team that was ranked number one in the One-day International rankings hardly two months ago. But their form has kept dropping with each game.

A mix of continuous international cricket, involving hectic travel schedules, hotel bubbles and the players’ participation in franchise T20 leagues — particularly the Sri Lankan Premier League — Arthur suggested, had played a significant role in causing fatigue in players.

“[The fatigue] affects decision making, it affects the ability to execute your skills,” the 55-year-old observed. “Your mind wants you to do things but your body doesn’t support it, it plays on everything.”

The fatigue has been central to a vicious cycle Pakistan have found themselves in as they look to avoid missing out on the semis. “So, for us, we haven’t been in the position where we can rest players now, we haven’t been in that position, because every game becomes bigger than the last, so you want to keep playing your best teams,” Arthur added.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2023