Babar Azam stressed upon the difficulty of shifting focus to a different format in such a short span of time, with the three-match T20I series against England starting on August 28, just three days after the end of the Test series which Pakistan lost 1-0.
The quick turnaround is due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that at one stage threatened to ruin the entire summer but thankfully left the authorities with enough space in the calendar to squeeze in those fixtures amid bio-secure arrangements.
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Babar, wary of the fatigue factor for players like him as he was, also felt a bit relaxed knowing that those who arrived only for the limited-overs matches have been practising for long and will be raring to go.
"It's really difficult to come from red-ball to white-ball," the Pakistan T20I skipper told reporters. "We only got one day for practice, yesterday we had a little bit with the white ball. It's all in the mindset, we hope that we will come up with a good performance."
"T20 specific players have been practising so the aim is to win the series," said Babar, adding that despite Pakistan being at full strength and England resting its regular names, there won't be any complacency. "We will not take England lightly. They have good white-ball players."
Babar, easily his team's best batsman, was only late last year handed over the captaincy in white-ball cricket; tasked, specifically in T20Is, with the quest of regaining the No.1 tag and making a strong claim of once again becoming the T20 World Cup champions in India in 2021.
The 25-year-old, who has been focussing on maintaining a better balance with regards to his strike-rate and average, said on a personal note, he would love to score his maiden T20I hundred in this series against England.
"I always try to play as well as I can. It is one of my goals to score a century in T20Is and to be honest, my aim is to score one in this series," said Babar.
"It’s disappointing that I couldn’t convert my starts into big scores (during the Test series), but I will learn from these mistakes. I have analyzed those in order to get better in the forthcoming series," added the right-hander, who made his 195 runs at an average of 48.75 in the Tests that went by.
(Inputs from AFP)
