Wasim Akram, Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq came down hard on Babar Azam and so, here is a look at what the former Pakistani stars had to say about the Pakistani skipper after Pakistan lost their world cup match against Afghanistan by 8 wickets.
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Wasim Akram, Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq Censure Babar Azam
Wasim Akram who was part of an expert panel on a local sports channel while pointing out mistakes in Babar’s captaincy said, “At the 45-over mark, we had two overs of Shaheen and Haris each and one over of Hasan Ali but we gave the ball to Usama Mir, why? Who will answer these questions?” He further said, “It was an embarrassing day today. To reach 280-odd losing just two wickets is pretty big.”
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Shahid Afridi on the other hand while talking on a news channel was also critical of Babar’s captaincy. He said, “It is the captain’s job to apply pressure, a pacer is bowling and there is no slip? Four are required on 12 balls and you’ve taken backward point? Apply pressure. What do the Australians do? They take one to two wickets and then put all of their players in the circle to apply pressure, like they did against Pakistan. Captaining your national side is a matter of honour but it is not a bed of roses. When you do good, everyone praises you and when you don’t, everyone blames you as well as the head coach.”
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Former all-rounder Abdul Razzaq was more critical of Babar’s batting plan. He said, “When Abdullah Shafique was playing he was aggressive but when Babar came into bat, he was stopping his shots, which means he got guidelines to not hit the shot. He tried to stop the ball or play a half-hearted shot. The ball he got out on was not a wicket-taking ball, it seemed like he did not know how to play. This means that whenever the captain is on the crease, the strike rate of other players is 78 to 80. It means that he was told to play like that. This is not cricket. You are scoring 270 against such teams while the target should be around 350. This should have been your approach. They say Babar doesn’t know captaincy then what are the people in management doing? They should help him out.”