Misbah was in no mood to sugarcoat things after Pakistan went down 0-2 © Getty

Misbah ul Haq has come down heavily on his players after the T20I series loss against Sri Lanka on Monday (October 7). After taking the ODI series 2-0, Pakistan have lost both T20Is so far by 64 runs and 35 runs respectively.

"Losing is never good, especially against a team that is without their major players, and it's an eye-opener," Misbah said. "We can see deficiencies in every department: bowling, batting and particularly the way we got out against spin, and also our death bowling.

"There was a clear difference between the two teams. Despite being inexperienced, they were disciplined and did everything right, while we completely failed to implement our plan."

Pakistan had recalled Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal for the series but both batsmen failed to produce the goods. While Sarfaraz Ahmed stressed the two batsmen deserved an opportunity after their domestic performances, Misbah too stuck to the same lines. "Both these players have performed well wherever they've played in the last one year. Ahmed's performance in PSL was remarkable enough for a chance, while Umar, whichever format he played, was among the good ones," he said. "It's unfortunate in our circuit, there is no other batsman in T20s who had performed better than them. Players who have performed in domestic surely deserve a chance, and that's why we offered them.

"If they weren't able to perform what can be done? Obviously I am answerable, but to build up a team you need to do some experiments to get the answers. When you play someone in international cricket with a couple of games, you understand the utility of a player. We need to show some patience and wait for the next series to find answers."

With all teams focussing on the T20 World Cup next year, Pakistan too are looking to build a squad for that tournament. Misbah has already outlined their targets and asked his middle-order batsmen to produce runs while the bowlers have been given the task of striking early. "There are a lot of reasons for this experimentation. Yes, we are the No. 1 team in the world but mostly our strength has been standing on Babar scoring runs and with him not scoring in two games, we are exposed badly," he pointed out. "We need to find out six or more match-winners, we need to have more dependable batsmen, we need powerhouses in the top and middle, and in bowling, we need to take wickets upfront and in the death overs and we need to have good finishers.

"But we failed overall, we are struggling in every department, and it's a big eye-opener for us. We didn't play to our strengths and couldn't deliver. We are looking for more batsmen rather than just relying on one or two."