WC'19 | Watch: 'Pakistan players were burnt last week', says Mickey Arthur

Arthur says if Pakistan continue to perform in the same vein against New Zealand, Bangladesh and Afghanistan they will definitely advance to the last-four stage.

London: Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur is happy to see Pakistan defeated South Africa by 49 runs at the Lord's to keep their semifinal hope alive in the 2019 World Cup. Arthur said that this clinical performance could help Pakistan shut some people up.

Riding on Haris Sohail's 59-ball 89 and a sensible 69 runs innings from Babar Azam Pakistan posted 308 for 7. South Africa, in reply, managed to score just 259 for 9 in 50 overs.

"What I do know is that guys do, when they are backs to the wall, we get some good performances out of them, and maybe, yeah, I just think the guys were burnt last week. The guys were incredibly hurt, by media, by public, by social media, and hopefully, we got a proper reaction from them today that can just shut some people up for a little while," Arthur said. Arthur feels if Pakistan continue to perform in the same vein against New Zealand, Bangladesh and Afghanistan they will definitely advance to the last-four stage. "I know we can beat New Zealand," he said. "We are alive and kicking, without a doubt, and we play our best game, we beat anybody. Whether that's New Zealand, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, our remaining games, or England, we showed. We put our three disciplines together, we are as good as any team in this competition."

Mickey Arthur is happy with his team's performance.

He also said that Pakistan need to perform as a unit. Though their batsmen and bowlers did a commendable job against South Africa fielding was not up to the mark. Pakistan reportedly dropped a number of catches during the Proteas' chase. "I thought we got our bowling and batting spot-on. Our problem is we haven't put three disciplines together yet in any game," he said. "We bowled well, we batted well. We didn't field well today. So when we put three disciplining together, we'll be exceptional. The closest we've got was when we beat England. We are very firmly in the World Cup. We win our next three games, we'll qualify. So we know that."

Arthur also hailed Sohail for playing a quickfire 89 runs knock off 59 balls to help Pakistan set a daunting 309 runs target for South Africa, who never posed a serious threat to their oppositions during the chase.

"Yeah, Harry played beautifully, and I think I've spoken about it before, I think he's certainly in our top three batsmen, and he had a particularly good lead-up. He got 200 against Australia, albeit in different conditions, but he played exceptionally well," Arthur signed off.