Pakistan's fielding abilities concerns Arthur ahead of World Cup

After Pakistan's dismal run in the recently concluded five-match series against England, Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur lambasted his side's fielding abilities saying it worries him.

"Our fielding has been very disappointing. That's been the massive difference between the two sides. If you look at the games in Southampton and Nottingham, going into the last five overs, it was anybody's game. We competed really well," International Cricket Council (ICC) quoted Arthur, as saying.

"The one difference has been our fielding, and that's a real worry for me because we are putting a hell of a lot of effort into it. And there's not a massive amount of reward for us at the moment. We'll just keep knocking away at it to make sure we get it up to speed," he added.

Pakistan went down 0-4 to England with one match being abandoned due to rain. However, Pakistan took one positive from the series in spite of losing it, and that is their confidence got boosted as they exceeded expectations.

Pakistan scored 361, 358, 340 and 297 in the four ODI against England and had three different centurions in the four games.

"People, coming to England, said we were a 280 team. We've dispelled that and that's given our batting unit a massive amount of confidence. I'm taking a fair amount of positives in that department," Arthur said.

Pakistan faced this defeat ahead of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, however, they still have two warm-up games before going into the premier tournament. Arthur expressed confidence on his players saying that: "we've got a couple of days now to regroup, two warm-up games, and then we'll go. I'm very, very confident with the players we've got. We need to sharpen up on a couple of disciplines, but we'll certainly get there. We'll be good."

Pakistan will play two warm-up matches, against Afghanistan and Bangladesh on May 24 and 26 respectively. While Pakistan will open their World Cup campaign against West Indies on 31 May.