Wahab Riaz wants Pakistan fans to avoid getting personal in their criticism of the team’s World Cup performances.

With just one win from five games in the tournament, Pakistan will in all likelihood need to win every one of their remaining group matches to qualify for the semi-finals. Some ordinary displays from Sarfaraz Ahmed’s side have included a seven-wicket hammering against West Indies in their opening match and being outclassed by rivals India at Old Trafford.

As a result, the team and their captain have been targeted by some supporters on social media , while footage of one fan confronting Sarfaraz was circulated.

Wahab accepts that Pakistan have performed poorly, but the fast bowler says fans should not cross the line.

“None of us like the fact that we lost to India,” said the 33-year-old. “We feel very strongly at having disappointed people, I’d say we are more hurt and disappointed than people back at home. There is demoralisation when there are personal attacks on us in the media. Criticise us, criticise our performances and we will accept it because we want to do perform better. I think if people stay away from getting our families into it and focus on our game, that’s more important.”

His words were echoed by Sarfaraz at a press conference on the eve of Sunday’s game against South Africa at Lord’s.

“The request is to talk about cricket,” he said. “Social media and media are not in our control. They are so big that you cannot stop them. Teams have lost before, they will lose again, but now with social media so big it gets unstoppable.”

Wahab, meanwhile, insists the players have the determination to turn their campaign around.

“The players are each other’s strength,” he said. “When we speak to people at home, they tell us why did you do this, if you’d done that, you’d have done better. So as a team we know we can lift each other up more than what even our families can do.

“Pakistan plays better under pressure and inshallah, we will quality for the finals and semi-finals. Our focus is on beating South Africa, and we know we shouldn’t get ahead or think about the future. We need to go one by one on what do every day. On what we do in the now and not what is happening elsewhere. We shouldn’t be thinking about the future beyond the one by one. Everything one by one.”

Wahab also feels that Pakistan have “more talent” than an out-of-sorts South Africa who, like Sunday’s opponents, have won just once at the tournament.

“Execution of skills is everything,” he said. “They have failed in that aspect as well like we did, we had matches we could have won. In this match it depends on who handles pressure better and plays better. They will win.”

Admitting that Pakistan dstruggled to deal with pressure against India, Wahab wants Pakistan to focus on improving the smaller areas of their game.

“It was a pressure game and every player feels it. But we didn’t play as well as we can. We didn’t play as good as we are. And we need to play better. We were in very good positions with our batting against Australia and then we gave it away. We did the same against India. We will need to do the small things better and we need to be in control of those. We need to play our A game throughout.”

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