Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has come under the scanner after his team’s embarrassing eight-wicket defeat at the hands of Afghanistan in Match 22 of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 at Chepauk on Monday (October 23).
The loss has put Pakistan on the brink of elimination from the quadrennial event. They need to win their remaining four games and hope that other results go their way to secure a place in the semi-final.
After the game, former Pakistani captains Wasim Akram, Moin Khan, Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq raised questions over Babar’s leadership skills, saying that he is not good enough for the job.
“From Chairman, selectors, captain, coaches everyone is responsible for this debacle,” Akram stated on A Sports.
However, Malik said the only person who is responsible for this situation is captain Babar Azam, who is also the No. 1 ranked ODI batter.
“The guy who is most responsible is captain. As a batsman he is King but as a leader he is not.”
On the other hand, Moin Khan lashed out at Babar Azam, saying that the latter has learnt nothing as a captain from his past experiences.
“He is leading the side for the past four years. He has led the team in almost all the big events. Not a single thing he has learnt over the period of time,” said Moin.
“When you need to apply pressure, he is not doing anything. When you need wickets, you don’t see the close in fielders. You need to bring those strategies. We were playing against Afghanistan, he should have attacked by bringing the close in fielders,” he added.
Highlighting Babar’s blunder as a captain, Wasim Akram mentioned that the seamers had their quota of overs left but the Pakistan skipper still brought spinners in 45th over of the match.
“Shaheen and Haris had two overs remaining, Hasan had one over left. We gave the bowl to the spinners. Osama went for 11 runs. Shadab conceded ten or twelve runs,” said Wasim.
Misbah blamed Babar’s captaincy for ruining the confidence of Haris Rauf, who is struggling with his line and length while bowling in the powerplay.
“We can see that whenever Haris Rauf is given the ball to bowl in the powerplay, he is struggling. He is low in confidence, he is leaking 18-20 runs in his first over. We have spoken after the last match against Australia as well, how New Zealand bring Mitchell Santaner in the eighth or the ninth over. It is an attacking option, since it is the last over of the powerplay, batsmen tries to take risk. It is a gamble, you can take wicket as well.
“It would have been good for Haris’s confidence if captain would have given the ball after the powerplay, when there are four fielders in the deep. Then he can bowl his bouncers. If he is bowling short of length outside the off stump, he will have a sweeper cover. Now what’s happening is that he is getting hit four boundaries in the first over and he is done for the whole game.
“We know that Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran play the pace bowling well. If we could have bring the spinners early and forced them to attack, they could have got in trouble,” said Misbah.
Shoaib Malik interrupted his former teammate, saying that the spin department is struggling as well.
“Sorry to interrupt Misbah bhai! our spin department is also struggling. Our captain don’t think out of the box. Saud Shakeel is there, he can bowl you don’t give him the ball.”
Moin pointed out the lack of planning before the Afghanistan game in Chennai.
“Gurbaz loves to play pull and hook shots. When Shaheen started to bowl, he should have bring the third man up, kept the square leg, should have started with the stumps line and then could have bowled a bouncer. Set a field for bouncer and then bowl a yorker. Gurbaz would have been in two minds. Yorker is Shaheen’s strength but he didn’t bowled a single one. I think there was lack of planning about what we should do against Afghanistan,” he concluded.
