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Pallekele, Mar 9(ANI): There is no need for Pakistan to press the panic button in the wake of its embarrassing 110-run defeat against New Zealand in the ongoing World Cup, coach Waqar Younis has said.

Although Waqar agreed that Pakistan had flopped miserably against New Zealand on Tuesday, and that they were also below par against Canada in a 46-run win last week, he made it clear that there was no need to lose nerves, as the team had enough time to resurrect itself.

“It’s certainly a big defeat. We have been performing badly in several areas. We haven’t been batting well. We haven’t bowled well and our fielding has been bad. But I must say that there is no need to panic. We have five days to work on our mistakes and have to make sure that we don’t repeat them in our next matches,” Geo Super quoted Waqar, as saying.

Pakistan will meet underdogs Zimbabwe in their next match on March 14, and will play against Australia in their last Pool A match in Colombo on March 19.

“We have to stay focused and win the rest of the games,” Waqar said. “We’ve got Australia to handle and then the quarterfinals.”

Waqar admitted that the blunders made by stumper Kamran Akmal- who gifted a double reprieve to Ross Taylor- proved costly for Pakistan as the beneficiary went on to hit an unbeaten 131 to guide New Zealand to victory.

“You can’t accuse any one person for this defeat. It’s not the time to accuse anybody. It was his (Kamran’s) bad day today,” he said during a post-match press conference.

But Waqar later acknowledged: “Kamran dropped a couple of sitters which really cost us the match today.”

When asked whether Pakistan was thinking of replacing Kamran, the coach said: “Now is not the time to do it, you can’t kick him out now. You can think about (replacing him) that after the World Cup.” (ANI)