Coming down heavily on Babar Azam’s captaincy in the ODI World Cup after Pakistan’s eight-wicket loss against Afghanistan, former Pakistani captains Wasim Akram, Moin Khan, Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq has termed Azam as not good enough for the captaincy role. Afghanistan restricted Pakistan on 282 and then chased it down with an over to spare.
The defeat understandably saw temperatures rise back in Pakistan with former national team players pointing fingers at tactics, bowling or the captaincy of Babar.
“From Chairman, selectors, captain, coaches everyone is responsible for this debacle” said Pakistan legend Wasim Akram on A Sports.
Shoaib Malik, meanwhile, says the only person who is responsible for this situation is captain Babar Azam. He said: “The guy who is most responsible is captain. As a batsman he is King but as a leader he is not.”
Former Pakistan captain and wicketkeeper made a scathing remark that Babar as a captain has learnt nothing 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.
Wasim Akram pointed out when the seamers had their quota what was the point of bringing spinners in 45th overs 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-ul-Haq lamented Babar Azam’s captaincy for ruining the confidence of Haris Rauf, who is struggling with his lengths 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.
Malik interrupted his former teammate saying the spin depart is equally struggling. “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.”
