Babar Azam won’t ever sacrifice for his staff: Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis slam Pakistan captain

T20 World Cup: Pakistan captain Babar Azam has been slammed by legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis for being egocentric and insecure. Wasim Akram criticises the captain and recounts previous incidents.

Melbourne,UPDATED: Oct 28, 2022 23:00 IST

Babar Azam departs after getting out towards India. (Courtesy: AP)

By India Today Web Desk: Pakistan captain Babar Azam has been slammed by Pakistan legends over his constant occupation of the opening spot regardless of poor kind. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, two of the best quick bowlers to have ever performed the sport of cricket have come out in arms towards the Pakistan captain after the staff’s loss towards Zimbabwe within the T20 World Cup.

Calling opening the best place to bat in T20 cricket, Waqar has mentioned that Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan haven’t let Pakistan let experiment on the opening place regardless of tinkering with all the pieces else within the staff. The former quick bowler is of the opinion that due to this Pakistan’s opening reserves have been left with no successor at a time when each batters have been failing persistently.

“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 mentioned on Pakistan sports activities present – 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,” Waqar additional added.

Waqar’s former bowling accomplice Wasim Akram added to his factors and revealed that he had confronted similar points with Babar Azam at Karachi Kings, the place the batter refused to surrender his place for the staff regardless of going by way of a horrible patch of kind.

Both gamers have accused Babar of being egocentric and insecure.

“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 mentioned.

“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 recounted his time at Karachi Kings.

As issues stand, Pakistan would want a miracle to get by way of to the semi-finals of the match after shedding again to again matches towards India and Zimbabwe.

Edited By:

Kingshuk Kusari

Published On:

Oct 28, 2022