Karachi: The reactions from former players to Pakistan's defeat to Australia in the cricket World Cup quarterfinals was a mixed one with some of them blaming captain Misbah-ul-Haq, head coach Waqar Younis and the Pakistan Cricket Board for their failed campaign.
"It is a pity that Misbah even after remaining captain for five years couldn't decide upon his squad properly for the World Cup. This is what let us down today," former captain and batsman, Muhammad Yousuf said.
"One would have thought that for such an important event Misbah and the selectors would have been clear about the players they wanted. But on the contrary we had two players going for the World Cup Rahat Ali and Sohail Khan who were not even named in the original 30 member preliminary squad," he said.
Yousuf called for a clean start in the aftermath of the World Cup and said the government should also look seriously at cricket affairs and bring about widespread changes in the board.
He said clearly some of the Pakistani batsmen had big technical faults which they needed to work out as they were exposed in the mega-event.
Former test captain Aamir Sohail had no doubt that Pakistan was good enough only to reach the quarter finals and not go beyond that.
"Let us be honest this team was capable of only reaching the quarter finals and this defeat is not a surprise.
"The batting let us down even though we won the toss. Some of the shot selection was atrocious and there was no game plan from our batters," Sohail said.
The former test opener, who has also remained chief selector, felt that the board should now start building a new team and appoint wicketkeeper-batsman, Sarfraz Ahmed as the new captain for ODIs.
Former test captain, Rashid Latif said some of the decisions taken by the management cost the team.
"The management made crucial mistakes and that coupled with injuries to key players really hit us hard," Latif said.
He said the management had wasted Sarfraz and senior batsman Younis Khan in the tournament and not used them properly.
