“Like COVID times…”: Mickey Arthur terms extremely tight security for Pakistan team in India as ‘tough ride’

Pakistan are set to face New Zealand in their penultimate league stage of the ongoing World Cup on Saturday (November 4) at the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore. It has been a tough campaign for them in the mega event so far with four losses from seven matches so far. Meanwhile, their team director Mickey Arthur has compared their stay in India to COVID times when the players were not allowed out of their hotel rooms.

The political relations between India and Pakistan are not great and for the same reason, the players have been provided tight security during their stay in the country. While Arthur understands the importance of the security, he feels players’ mindset certainly gets affected after staying confined to their hotel rooms for long time. 

“What has been tough is the fact that we’ve been under a massive amount of security. And to be fair, I found it difficult. It’s almost like we’ve been back in the COVID times, where you were almost secluded to your floor and your team room. So much so that their breakfast is in a separate room to everybody else,” Arthur said in the pre-match press conference. He also went on to say that staying confined to one place has certainly had an impact on the players’ performance at the World Cup.

However, to make it interesting for the players, the team management of Pakistan has time and again organised fun events within their hotel rooms. “Our boys are used to being on the road. But when they’re on the road, they’ve still been able to get out and have meals at different places, and get out on their own accord, and we haven’t been able to do this time. That’s been tough and stifling,” Arthur added.

“It’s like Groundhog Day. You have breakfast and if it’s a non-training day, you’re back to your room. We’ve tried to have sort of little fun team events within our team room. But there’s only so much you can recreate. I think the guys have been out three times – we’ve managed to do that with security, get them out to a different restaurant, just to give them a little bit of a taste of the outside world,” he further said.

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