Mickey Arthur hails ‘remarkable’ Pakistan turnaround after ICC Champions Trophy win

Mickey Arthur is very pleased with how Pakistan went on to defy all expectations and win the ICC Champions Trophy and wants to build on this for the ICC World Cup in 2019.

Mickey Arthur hailed Pakistan’s turnaround from their opening ICC Champions Trophy defeat to India as “remarkable” after they clinched the title with a stunning victory over the same opposition in Sunday’s final.

Pakistan's coach Mickey Arthur was rightfully pleased with how his side turned around their form to win the ICC Champions Trophy.(AFP)

Pakistan came into the competition as the lowest-ranked one-day international nation and their status as outsiders appeared justified when they were thumped by 124 runs by their arch-rivals at Edgbaston earlier this month. 

But they responded with victory over South Africa and a thrilling defeat of Sri Lanka to reach the last four, before easily seeing off one of the pre-tournament favourites in hosts England in the semi-finals.

READ | Pakistan consign India to horror defeat in Champions Trophy final

Yet few would have expected them to dish out a 180-run hammering to India in Sunday’s final at The Oval, leaving head coach Arthur to express his amazement at the scale of their revival.

Arthur said: “It’s been an up and down ride for us, but just so proud of the boys. We dusted ourselves off after that India defeat at Edgbaston and came back superbly, the whole group kept believing and that’s the most important thing. 

“We knew we prepared well, we knew we were better than that, to dust ourselves off and come back has been a remarkable achievement, just so proud of everybody.

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“We want to try to be a lot more consistent as a team, but we’ve got a group of young players here that are fantastic. 

“We’ve got to keep this momentum now, we’re on the right track and I’m just happy with the brand of cricket we’re playing. Everything is going well at the minute.

“We’ve got two years until 2019 [World Cup] now, we’ve got the monkey off our back in terms of qualifying, we’ve got enough points now that we’ll not have to go through the qualifying stages, which for us was really important. 

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“We’ve got two years to put in hard work, identify the type of players we want to take forward and work with them really hard for two years.”