Cape Town - New Pakistan coach Misbah-ul-Haq said his team have "lots of questions to answer" after suffering a 3-0 whitewash in the T20I series at home against Sri Lanka.

What made the defeat hard to grasp is that the home team came into the series as the number one ranked side in the shortest format and played against a largely second-string Sri Lanka outfit after several players decided against touring due to security reasons.

Pakistan have been at the top of the T20I rankings for close to two years but showed no signs of their superiority over Sri Lanka.

It was the first T20I series at the helm for Misbah as coach and chief selector after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decided to axe Mickey Arthur after the World Cup earlier this year.

Misbah said: "It's an example for us the way they have beaten us in every department.

"They won the games in almost one-sided fashion leaving us in tatters and with lots of questions to answer.

"We played very poor cricket and definitely it's my responsibility but I am still thinking what really happened because these are the same set of players that have been playing for long and made the team No. 1."

When asked if the loss was because of a strategy shift in the dressing room since Arthur left, Misbah said: "I haven't done anything in the last 10 days that could have deterred anything.

"If you want to put responsibility on me you can but in this brief time since I took charge how big a difference could I created with my coaching.

"The strategy was simple: to cash in on the Powerplay and later go all out in the last five overs.

"These are the same players who took Pakistan on top [in the T20I rankings] but in this series they were not able to execute things well with the bat, ball and while fielding."