Babar Azam said injuries to his key fast bowlers made things difficult for Pakistan.
Pakistan captain Babar Azam seems to be in no mood to listen to any advice from anyone, especially from Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) chief Ramiz Raja currently, thanks to the recent drama over a dinner outing in Karachi.
Actually, Raja recently hailed England’s new approach in Test cricket and advised Babar to "pick T20 players" for Test cricket. Well, the suggestion didn’t go down well with the Pakistan skipper, and now he has strongly reacted by saying that "you can’t change things and your mindset" in a week.
He also said that the team can’t please everyone and that questions will always arise whenever they are on the losing side. His comments came after Pakistan was whitewashed 0-3 by England in the Test series at home.
As quoted by The Indian Express, Babar Azam replied to Raja’s advice and said: “The door is not shut for anyone. There is a set plan for everything and we have it for every format. You can’t change things in a day or week. It takes time. For the mindset to change, it takes time.
Then, if we start playing defensively, journalists will ask why we don’t play aggressively and when we play aggressively, they ask why we don’t play the other way. There will always be questions, you can’t please everyone. Ultimately what matters is results. If results don’t come then questions will be raised no matter what we do.”
Meanwhile, Babar said that injuries to key Pakistani fast bowlers played a huge role in the home side's dismal performance against England, as they lost all three matches in Rawalpindi, Multan, and Karachi.
Notably, Pakistan’s premier fast bowler Shaheen Afridi was already ruled out of the Test series and then Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah also sustained injuries during the home series.
He explained, “We were unfortunate that our main fast bowlers were not fit. The new players did perform but couldn’t execute the way we wanted. When things were in our hands, we had soft dismissals in those times and due to that we couldn’t win matches that we should have won.”
Babar signed off by saying, “Fitness has the main role because if you are not extra fit you cannot compete in all the three formats. You get two to three days to switch from one format to the other and you have to be mentally ready as well. When you don’t have the backbone of your bowling, then new bowlers found it difficult to adjust quickly. The way England played, they did not let us settle down.”
Pakistan will now prepare for a two-Test series against New Zealand which begins shortly.