Babar Azam has come under the scanner after Pakistan’s two successive heartbreaking defeats in the ongoing T20 World Cup in Australia.
While the Men in Green suffered a four-wicket defeat at the hands of arch-rivals India in their tournament opener, they copped a narrow 1-run loss in the second Super 12 fixture against Zimbabwe.
As a batter, Babar failed to step up to the plate in both games. While the Pakistan skipper bagged a first-ball duck against India, he scored 4 off 9 balls in the match versus Zimbabwe.
After the Zimbabwe defeat, Pakistan pace legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis have slammed Babar over his consistent occupation of the opening spot.
According to Waqar, opening is the easiest place to bat in T20 cricket and Babar and Mohammad Rizwan have not let Pakistan let experiment at the opening slot despite making other changes in the team.
“The easiest place to bat in T20s is opening. You have not let anyone else open in the last two years. I have discussed this with Misbah before, that why don’t you try something new? You have tried it out with bowling, but with batting, we have tried all the experiments with the middle order. But the openers have remained the same and they have batted 14-15 overs together,” Waqar said on Pakistan sports show - The Pavillion.
“Sometimes, as a captain and as a leader, you leave your spot and say, Haider, if it is not working out for you in the middle order, I will give you the easier spot (opening) and we never tried that out, and that is why we are suffering. And we also lose because of the way they score runs. To become No.1 and No. 2 (in T20I rankings) is not a big deal, the important thing is to win after scoring those runs,” he further added.
On the other hand, Wasim Akram alleged that he had faced the same issues with Babar Azam at Karachi Kings, where the batter wasn’t willing to sacrifice his opening slot.
“All of these things begin at the top. And at the top is your captain. If your captain plays for himself and is insecure. If your captain scores runs and lets other batters play at his position, you get to know that your captain is ready to sacrifice himself for you, this Babar has to learn,” Wasim said.
“The difference between being a captain and the leader, well that’s the difference,” quipped Waqar.
“I have been through this by the way with Babar, at Karachi Kings, yes. In the team we had a couple of bad phases and I requested him once or twice nicely, that please come down at number 3, we’ll try something different. Let (Martin) Guptill bat at the top, seeing he is an opener. And he (Babar) said I would not go down, you ask Sharjeel to bat at 3, and he (Sharjeel) is a natural opener too. And these little things that the captain does, the team senses too,” Wasim recalled his time at Karachi Kings.
Pakistan will next face Netherlands at Perth on Sunday (October 30).
