Speaking about his captaincy record and speculations that captaincy has hampered his performances, Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has said that captaincy has only enhanced his performances ahead of the five-match T20I series against West Indies.
Babar Azam was appointed as the captain of Pakistan Test team in all three formats of international cricket in November last year. However, ever since his appointment as Test captain, he has scored 124 runs in four matches at and averaged a touch over 20 in the longest format even though this is a very small sample size.
These stats are completely different when it comes to the limited over formats. Babar Azam has averaged 78.25 in nine ODIs he has led Pakistan, in contrast to averaging 54.17 when he was just a batsman. In T20Is he averages 43.15 at a strike rate of 137.4 compared to averaging 49.61 at a strike rate of 126.59 as a batsman.
"I think it's important to understand what is captaincy. It's all about on-field encouraging the players, when the bowlers get hit, you have to back them. Back the batsmen when the scores aren't coming," Babar Azam said ahead of the T20I series against West Indies.
"From the time I've become captain, the margin of error is more and the expectations have also increased. I try to perform in every match. Since the time I've become captain, my performances have improved as well. I take it as a challenge. Hopefully, I can carry on and I can improve even more," he added.
Pakistan lost the three-match ODI series and three-match T20I series against England in their previous assignment. The team will look to make amends in the upcoming tour to West Indies.
Babar Azam emphasized that they will try different combinations in the T20I series to get a clarity ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
"The aim is to play different combinations in this series and also check our bench strength. The guys have done well in PSL as well. We are going to back them,” he said.
Pakistan will hope for the bowlers to fire against a star-studded West Indian batting line-up in the four-match T20I series. The skipper said that a lot depends on how his team fields.
"We've discussed our mistakes and our aim is to not repeat them," Babar said. "The players need to be given confidence. We've worked very hard on our fielding. It was lacking but we've worked on it in the last two days,” he concluded.
Pakistan will take on West Indies in the first T20I on Wednesday, 28 July at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.
(Cricbuzz inputs)
