Extremely well prepared and ready to go: Arthur

As the coach of Australia, Mickey Arthur never got to experience the intensity of the Ashes, being removed on the eve of the 2013 edition – a fact he reminded an assembly of press corps to much mirth on Saturday.

As the present coach of Pakistan, Arthur is all set to experience the other big rivalry of international cricket when his side takes on India on Sunday at Edgbaston in Birmingham in an ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Group B game.

“I think this rivalry is certainly bigger than most and again just so excited to be part of it,” said Arthur. “The passion, the excitement, the expectation. Those are all words that come to mind, and it's fantastic. I just can't wait for tomorrow. The team can't wait for tomorrow. The players have been outstanding. The way they've approached – I've said in the dressing room, it's the most mature I've seen them around the day before training session.”

Arthur exuded satisfaction with his team’s preparations, saying, “The players have topped their skills up, and they're ready for a big game. Our changing room was completely calm. It's amazing. It's just the outside – it's the outside that there is noise. Within the dressing room, it is unbelievably calm, unbelievably focused and very, very excited for the challenge that presents itself tomorrow.”

While acknowledging that the match was a big one, Arthur said the players had been insulated from the hype. “We know for us to progress in this tournament, we've got to hit the ground running. So whether it was against South Africa, whether it was against Sri Lanka, the intensity and the expectation, certainly from myself as coach and I'm sure from the captain, would have been exactly the same,” he said. “It's just a different opposition, and there's a little bit of hype. And it's a massive game. But every game for us in this competition is massive. We can't take our foot off the pedal in any game, and we can't think, ‘ah, it's India, we have to just lift ourselves’, because that would be very unprofessional. We lift ourselves for every game. We prepare the same for every game.”

Also read: Pakistan v India: a brief history

Arthur likened the preparation of a big match and tournament to sitting for an exam. “The only way you control that nervous tension is in your preparation,” he explained. “We always talk about it like an exam. If you've crammed for an exam and you go in and write it, you're always on edge. You're always nervous. You always show a lot of tension because you know you haven't done the work.

“But if you’ve prepared properly, you'll be nervous but it will be an excited nervousness because you know you're ready. You know you've prepared. There's nothing more you could have done and then you just have to go out and execute. That's where we find ourselves as a team at the moment: Extremely well prepared and ready to go.”

Sarfraz Ahmed, the Pakistan captain, added the pressure would, in fact, be on India. “India will be the one under pressure. There is no pressure on us. We are at No. 8. Where can we go below this,” he smiled. “We'll try to play freely. From here if we win, we can go up in the rankings and if we win from here, they'll be a little unsettled.”

He also promised some never-before-seen plays from his team and agreed that keeping away from the hype was key. “We'll try to do new things that we haven't done against India, try something out of the box,” he said. “We try not to think too much about social media. You can’t ban it. Newspapers? Nobody reads the newspaper these days! We'll try not to think about all this and focus on the game.”

Also read: India-Pakistan: a rivalry like no other

One area the preparation has focussed on is making Pakistan savvier with the current pace of one-day cricket. “That's something that we've prioritised in terms of our preparation. We knew that we needed to play a different brand of cricket, and we're working on it. It's a work in progress,” he revealed. “It's changing. It's changing. Certainly in terms of awareness. Certainly in terms of brand of cricket. It is changing. I'm comfortable where we're at. I thought the last two ODIs in the West Indies we were very, very good. But in the first ODI, I thought we could have got another 20 runs in that one. Saying that, we still got 306. And I think that's testimony to the change that the guys have made in terms of their mindset.

“It was very interesting to read the other day – I go through the stats quite regularly – was that in the last year we've scored the third-most amount of 300s. England are way, way ahead, but Pakistan is No. 3 on that list. And I think that's testimony to the brand of cricket that we are starting to play.”

Also read: Advantage India but handling pressure will be the key

And one of the men leading the charge in that change is the young Babar Azam, who has an ODI average of over 55 to go with a strike rate of more than 90. “Babar has had an unbelievable year. His year has been fantastic in one-day cricket and across all formats,” gushed Arthur. “It's been a learning year for him. Test cricket, he's ridden the rough with the smooth a little bit, but one-day cricket, he's been phenomenal. His strike rate has been great. His technique is very, very good. He scores well. He runs well between wickets. There's a lot of expectation on Babar's shoulders now. He's only 23, but he's an integral part of our batting line-up. He knows that.”