Pakistan captain Babar Azam was elated with his team’s “much-needed” yet historic Test series triumph 2-0 over South Africa at home, but said they “have to further improve” in the five-day format.
Pakistan won the second and final Test by a 95-run win on the fifth day in Rawalpindi on Monday (February 8) to complete a historic clean sweep over South Africa.
It was Pakistan’s first Test series win over the Proteas side since 2003. With the memorable series win, Pakistan jumped to fifth place in the ICC Test rankings – their best standing since January 2017.
Azam said after the series win, “It's a welcome sign but we have to further improve. It was a much-needed win and the best part of this series win is that now we are number five in Test rankings.”
The new Test captain further said, “It will take time because it's a new team. I am a new captain and we have made some changes to the squad. When you win it lifts your confidence and I am sure this win against South Africa will give us improvement.”
Pakistan suffered a humiliating whitewash in New Zealand 0-2 and Babar has stressed the need to win Test matches away while showing confidence in the new-look team to do the same sooner or later.
The 26-year-old continued, “We have won at home, but we now need to win on away tours. I am sure that with time we will do that. We lost in New Zealand and there were so many negative things said, but I am sure that now people will back us.”
He also lauded the pacer Hasan Ali, who made came back after a year on the sidelines with multiple injuries and finished with figures of 10-114 in the second Test including a five-wicket haul.
Babar said: “Hasan was outstanding; he came after a year but showed character. Yes, at lunch we were thinking that it's getting away. At one time, we thought the game would’ve gone either way when Aiden Markram (108) and Temba Bavuma (61) were playing well.
But we knew, one wicket and we can come back into the game again. And then we did that with the new ball.”
Meanwhile, South African captain Quinton de Kock hoped his team will learn lessons from the loss.
De Kock signed off by saying, “It's painful at the moment. When we get back home, we'll have to look at our performances and improve on the way forward.”
(With AFP Inputs)
