August 14  
Pakistan coach, manager give reasons for defeat

TANGIERS: Pakistan coach Mudassar Nazar and captain Waqar Younis gave multiple reasons for their 54-run defeat to South Africa in the opening match of the Morocco Cup on Monday.

"There are different reasons: we played on a brand new pitch, we did not bowl well and let the opponents build a good score, our batsmen did not stay long at the crease, and the South Africans fielded extremely well," said Mudassar in his post-match comments.

Both of them expressed their determination to make up for the loss by achieving victories in the matches to come.

"With one defeat we are not out of the run, we are very much in the competition and it all depends how we perform in coming matches and we hope not to repeat mistakes," said Mudassar. Playing on a new surface was always difficult as nobody knew about the attitude of the pitch, he added.

He praised the fielding of the South Africans and urged his boys to follow them up in that department of the game in which they still lacked and needed improvement. "I've always been advocating my point to them (players) to put in extra efforts in fielding because by that way a lot of runs can be saved."

He described the performance of South African century-maker Gibbs as outstanding and said he played a match-winning knock and helped the side post a respectable total.

Comparing his side's batting with that of the Proteas, he said the Pakistan batsmen failed to associate in partnerships because of short-lived innings, but ruled out batting failure as the main reason for the loss.

Waqar agreed with Mudassar point of view, saying he would be paying extra attention to motivate the team to produce good results. "It was not a good result or a good start, but well be much improved against Sri Lanka in Wednesday (today) game," he pledged.

He said in the tri-nation tournament it was hard to predict which team would win and sometimes the team which lost the earlier games emerged as winners. 

"I am not saying that we should lose matches and then dream of victory. 

We shouldnt rule out chances that other teams, too, can play bad and such results can favour those sides which fail to claim victories in early rounds," he said.