WELLINGTON: Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq has said they “realisticallyconsidered pulling our of the New Zealand tour” during the time they spentin quarantine, before opting to stay to keep the game alive for fans. Hedid say the two-week strict quarantine took both a mental and physical tollon the players, but promised he would not use it as an excuse in the eventof an unfavourable result.

Pakistan’s quarantine period in New Zealand was notably more eventful thanWest Indies’, who were also made to quarantine before their series againstNew Zealand. The Pakistan players were strongly reprimanded by the NewZealand government for breaches of policy in the first 12 hours inisolation while half a dozen players tested positive putting the tour injeopardy.

There were several emails exchanged between the two boards on the treatmentof players in isolation while New Zealand’s director general of health DrAshley Bloomfield refused to allow players to train while in quarantine.

The PCB CEO Wasim Khan sent the players a message directly addressing them,warning they would be sent back to Pakistan if any further breaches of theCovid-19 protocols occurred, saying it would be “hugely embarrassing forthe country”.

“You try and analyse things and think realistically about every possibleangle,” Misbah said while interacting with the media for the first time inNew Zealand. “You think about how many days we need to prepare, how we aregoing to prepare, how to lift your team. Obviously these aren’t normalcircumstances; what happens here isn’t ideal.

But then for the sake of international cricket you want cricket to go on,and being a big stakeholder, we will give our full effort to help cricketoverall. We did discuss [about pulling out of the tour] but then finallydecided to say no to this option because when you invest this much time onthis, then you have got to give it a shot.

“Coping in the situation isn’t easy for anyone. But if we want to keep thegame alive and keep it going we have to make this sacrifice for fanssitting at home who want to watch the game and get entertained in thisdifficult time. We, as players and coaches, are the biggest stakeholdersand we have to keep on trying to give our every effort.

Let’s see how long it can go like this and for how long players can sustainit. But I think as professionals we somehow have to manage ourself in thebubble or in quarantine.”

While ruing the lack of training and the impact on players of strictisolation in Christchurch, Misbah said they were trying hard to catch up onlost time, squeezing 14 days of work into a week. Pakistan originally hadto get exemptions that allowed them to train in groups but with the initialpositive cases, the New Zealand Ministry refused permission to train amidconcerns about the risk of cross-infections within the squad. The refusalto their earlier exception deprived the side of their expected preparationto the series and Misbah said this will have affected the players.