To beat India in their crunch World Cup match, Pakistan must improve their fielding captain Sarfaraz Ahmed said after the team’s loss to Australia.
Pakistan were sloppy on field in the match against Australia as they conceded overthrows and were punished by Aaron Finch, who was dropped by Asif Ali at slip when he was on 33.
Finch went on to score 82 and built a 146-run opening stand with centurion David Warner to allow the champions to post a competitive total of 307.
“When two good teams play each other, the fielding can make a difference and we conceded runs due to lapses in fielding,” Sarfaraz told reporters. “If you want to beat the big teams, we can’t make such mistakes.
“Our fielding is not up to the mark and we will work hard on that before the India match. India are a strong team and if you continue to make the same mistakes then you won’t get an opportunity to win the match.”
Speaking about the loss to Australia, “We made good starts but didn’t build partnerships,” Sarfaraz added.
“The first few wickets were soft dismissals after the batsmen got set […] we lost three wickets in 15 balls and that was the turning point in the match.”
Pakistan play arch-rivals India next at Old Trafford on Sunday in a fixture where tensions always run high.