Fielding Must Improve

Waqar Younis: Pakistan needs to improve fielding ahead of ICC Cricket World Cup 2015

Fri, Dec 19 2014		Text Size

Waqar Younis wants his side to focus on improving their fielding and their technique against the short ball. © Getty

After the home series loss to New Zealand, Pakistan coach Waqar Younis warned his team that they needed to improve if they are to compete for top honours during the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup. New Zealand stand-in skipper, Kane Williamson, on the other hand, was elated with his side's display and hailed the one-day series win as a "great achievement."

Pakistan fell 68 runs short in their 276-run chase to lose the 5-match series 2-3, which prompted Waqar to call for extra hard work in fielding and batting against the short ball. They now have just two one-day internationals in New Zealand on January 31 and February 3 before the World Cup gets under way on February 14.

"We need to improve our fielding. It (fielding) is not up to the mark and must improve a lot a. We also need to work hard on (playing) short balls as we have to go to Australia and both these things need to be spot on if you want to compete in the World Cup," said Waqar.

"We did achieve what we needed in this series, but not 100 percent. I think we must keep hope, we are trying our best. I have full hope in this team for the World Cup, we will do well," added Waqar.

Meanwhile, New Zealand stand-in skipper Williamson described the series win as a "big achievement".

"There is still time for the World Cup, it's good that it will be in our conditions and this series win is a big achievement," said Williamson.

New Zealand's win was more significant as they rested regular captain, Brendon McCullum, and spearheads, Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Williamson, whose team levelled the series 1-1 and then 2-2, said they had learned from mistakes.

"We learned from our mistakes, beat a strong Pakistan side and have shown improvement. In a series that went up and down, it was fantastic to learn from the Pakistan side and to win in such an evenly-fought series has been great," he revealed.

Williamson termed the rotation of players as important.

"It was important to keep adapting our plans, the personnel changed quite a lot and we had a lot of injuries. It has been a great series, an emotional series for many reasons and both teams put on some fantastic cricket," he concluded.