30 October - Kolkata - Pakistan Head Coach Grant Bradburn pre-match press conference
[Reporter:]
My question is that are the players only trying or praying also that other results go in their favour like New Zealand crash out of the tournament?
[Grant Bradburn:]
Yeah absolutely, we're in a position that we didn't want to be. We were determined at this stage of the tournament to be in control of our destiny but we're not. That hurts the group and all we can do now is control what we can control, and that is prepare well for three remaining pool games and then allow fate to be hopefully leaning on us in terms of our semi-final hopes from there.
But we wanted to be in control. We're not, and that's the reality that we've faced, and that's certainly hurt the group, and there's been a lot of disappointment over the last period of time. But it's a very tight group, and pleased to say that we're really looking forward to another opportunity tomorrow.
[Reporter:]
Grant, before this tournament Pakistan was one of the favourites, then what went wrong with Pakistan team?
[Grant Bradburn:]
Look I'm not sure where you get favourites from because there are 10 teams in this tournament, there's 150 cricketers who are the best on the planet and in terms of the ICC rankings, we know they are skewed because we don't get to play India, we don't get to play a lot of the top nations who haven't been to Pakistan of late.
We were number five in April, we became number one recently before the tournament, and that might be where you term the phrase favourites. But we're realistic. We have not been the best in the world as yet, so which highlights where we are in this tournament right now. We have no divine right to beat anyone in this tournament. We have to play quality cricket, and we have to put all three departments of our game together. We are desperate to bring joy to our nation. We are desperate to make our nation very proud of this cricket team. And we are also realistic in the knowledge that we haven't put all departments of our game together over the last four games but four losses does not define who we are as players, as coaches or a team, So we're determined now to focus on what we can control and that is putting our best on the park in these last three games and then leaving that to fate as – to determine the remainder of the tournament for Pakistan.
[Reporter:]
How is the environment, the mood at this point? How challenging is it for you and Mickey and other coaching staff to update the morale and confidence of the players?
[Grant Bradburn:]
The environment is great. There's never any issue in terms of the environment. We have a wonderful group of players who are very determined, as I said before, to bring joy to their nation, play a quality, exciting brand of cricket for our fans and to make our country and our families proud of the performances that we put on the park. So, look that remains, this is a very tight group and feel free to wander down towards the dressing room and watch the training today you will see a very good vibe.
We're satisfied in the fact that we're prepared meticulously well for each and every game. But we're also realistic in the knowledge that we haven't put all departments of our game together and that hurts us because we haven't quite met the high expectations that we have of ourselves let alone our fans. We're very determined, we have given our fans a lot of joy and a lot of pleasure, I guess, and we're very proud of ourselves, of the fight that we showed in the last game against South Africa.
At times during this tournament, you know Sri Lanka was another good example of chasing down a record score. At times we have provided that joy and that hope and that proud cricket team that our fans want to see playing, a brand that makes them proud. But we haven't put that together consistently enough and we're determined to do so.
[Reporter:]
You said to the other question how the No.1 ranking might have been a little misleading because you don't get to play India and the best teams often enough. Do you by any chance kind of feel isolated and left behind because Pakistan boys don't even play IPL which is like the best league. So, do you feel isolated and left behind in terms of just intel and knowledge and getting the best competition and what's the way forward if you do?
[Grant Bradburn:]
No, we don’t feel isolated or intimidated by that. Mickey and I, when we took over this team in April, six months ago, we recognised that the team was playing a gear or two below where we wanted the team to be playing in terms of the brand, because we know the brand of cricket that is winning against quality teams is a more dynamic brand than perhaps, we were playing. So, we set a new course in April this year.
So, it hasn't been a big lead in to this major tournament for us. Ideally preparation for a tournament like this starts four years ago. We started six months ago and changed direction in the way that we want to play the game of cricket , especially the one-day brand.
We've shown some positive signs of that over the last six months, and as I've mentioned, during this tournament, we're very proud of some of the performances that we've put on the park. It's taking a little bit longer than we were hoping, but we want to play a dynamic brand that matches the challenge of the conditions we're playing in. So, this tournament is foreign condition for us. None of our players have played here before. Every venue is a new one, including this one. So, we've done our homework meticulously on our opposition, on our venues that we're playing at, and we're prepared very, very well for each and every encounter. But the reality is that each and every venue is a new one for us and we don't feel disadvantaged at all in terms of the knowledge, the quality, the skill, the backing that we have for this team of cricketers.
We've been consistent with our selection; we've backed our players and we still back our players to perform and show the brand of cricket that we want to play that matches the task at hand and also, we're the best in the world. And we've acknowledged over the past period of time that we're not at that level that we want to be, but we're certainly pushing hard to improve our brand of cricket because we know that the skills are within our players.
[Reporter:]
Does this loss against South Africa, it was really, really close in a competition where not much has gone right for you guys, does that make it even harder for you going into a game like this? A win there, you could have gone there with you, you know with greater motivation and stuff, does that make it a little harder going into tomorrow's game?
[Grant Bradburn:]
Yeah, as I mentioned at the start there was a lot of hurt in the camp, particularly after the South African game. Chennai was a difficult venue to assess conditions, as you all well know. We felt we assess the conditions well but in the South African game we acknowledge and we've had a skills meeting this morning and part of our skills meeting is that we reflect on the good and bad. And part of the admission for us is that we didn't have our batsmen going quite deep enough in that innings, and we probably left 20 to 30 runs out in the middle. And certainly 310 to 315, I think, in that game would have been sufficient to bring that game to a W for Pakistan. But it doesn't take away the fact that we're hugely proud of the way particularly the pace bowlers performed, the courage that they showed to take wickets throughout the middle phase of that chase and you know we have eight to ten key performance indicators that break down the whole performance and, in that game, you know we were particularly hurting because we know that we actually dominated the opposition in a number of those areas.
The one area that is key for us, we try and have one of our top four batsmen going through into the 40th over, we didn't do that and we have consistently I guess throughout our batting performance, when we were dominating the first two games, we had batsmen going through into that later phase and putting big scores on the board over the last four games. We've had batsmen that have gotten and haven't gone on. Those are some of the basics of the cricket that you all know so well that are vitally important for us too.
So, we've got faith in our lineup and our players. And we certainly look at every performance, whether it's a win or a loss, good and bad. We critique every performance. And we try and grab the learnings and keep growing and continually improve - that's our mantra. And while it was bitterly disappointing not to get over the line against South Africa, we thought we'd done enough to get over the line, we didn't. The key thing for us over the last few days is to continually learn from those experiences, good and bad, and continually grow from those experiences.
I'm pleased to say that we arrive at training today after a very good skills meeting this morning with a real determination to grow from that performance. We don't want to dwell too much on the past, we’re very much looking forward. We know Bangladesh very well. We've played them in the Asia Cup. We've played them before. As I said, this is a new venue for us. But we've done our homework, and we're very much looking forward to putting our best on the park over these next three games.
[Reporter:]
I have a two-fold question. First of all, you were beaten by India in the first half of the tournament. So, do you think that that loss brought the morale of the team down?
And the second one is Bangladesh is already out of the contention of the last four. So, at this point of time, they have nothing to lose. So how difficult is it to play a team like them in this stage of the tournament?
[Grant Bradburn:]
I'll deal with the first question first and the answer is definitely no. That was a performance in Ahmedabad which was a huge experience for all of our players having never played at that venue before and the unusual experience of playing in front of a 1,30,000 supporters of the opposition was a was a huge experience and ultimately a good experience for our boys. We were bitterly disappointed with the process. I've spoken about the key performance indicators. We break down a performance into certain areas of batting and bowling. When we do these things, we generally win our games. And one of the things that we didn't do was take the innings deep. We started very well in Ahmedabad and we obviously didn't have our top order going through to the later stages of that innings to really put a competitive total on the board. We fought hard with the ball and in the field but we ultimately, we didn't have enough to win that game but we reflected on that as we always do. We isolated the performance where - or the part of the performance that we didn't do well enough and we've trained that and we brought that to the fore.
So, we've grown from that experience. We're not dwelling on that. Look, we haven't got on a roll in this tournament, and we understand that it's fine lines here in Indian conditions. And particularly, I would say, with our bowlers, we’re renowned for having a fantastic group of fast bowlers, both here and at home. We have a great resource of fast bowling talent in Pakistan. We do rely on swing, but we haven't experienced too much swing here. The balls are different. The conditions are different and it's certainly the ball tends to wear a lot quicker here.
So, you know, we're learning that on the fly as well so therefore our lines have been different that we've been bowling and we haven't put enough balls in good areas really to create the pressure that we want and to take the wickets and the power play especially that we want to want to do.
Yeah - Bangladesh, look as I said right at the start there's ten quality teams here at this tournament, we don't have a divine right to beat any of them. We know that to beat any team, we need to play well, and we know that when we can put three parts of our game together, we can beat any team in this tournament. We respect Bangladesh hugely. They're a quality group of cricketers. We've had a good look at where we believe we can exploit their potential weaknesses and we know where their strengths are. So, we're prepared well for Bangladesh. We're focused very much on looking in the mirror as well and making sure that we're putting our very best performance together that we can.
[Reporter:]
My question is what is your take on umpire's call? And is there any distraction by the players on central contract signing by the Pakistani board and all those things, like Omar Gul said that Shadab Khan had an injury like that. So, is that disrespecting and the umpires fault?
[Grant Bradburn:]
No, the simple answer to that is look we try and focus on the things we can control.And look, the umpires control the game and look, those things are unfortunate for us that, but that's part of the game, part of the game. So, we don't control that, so we don't tend to worry too much about that. We tend to look more in the mirror, and referring to the South African game, you know we've isolated the area of the game that we didn't quite do well enough. And that was the last five overs. We scored 11 runs. The last five overs, we needed to score 25 to 30 runs. And we probably would have bought that game to a close earlier.
So those are the things that we focus on, the things within our control. And in terms of the noise around the team, look, playing for Pakistan and working within this team is a huge privilege. And there's great expectation always. And understandably, there's always lots of noise from outside, lots of fans that have an opinion and we look at that as a good thing and it just shows that they care. And we're desperate to make our nation proud and we're desperate to show them a brand of cricket that they can be proud of and bring joy and hope to the nation and that's all we can control.
So, we’re very much focused, players and staff, on staying tight, staying true to our own values that we've set and keep striving to the standards that we've set ourselves, let alone the standards that our fans expect of us.
There's only certain things that we can control and that's very much within our focus.