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Pakistan captain Babar Azam has faced a ton of criticism of late for his leadership and approach with the bat, particularly in the shortest format of the game. Interestingly, the Pakistan superstar has also received flak because of his lack of communication skills in English. Former Men in Green speedster Shoaib Akhtar has been one of Babar's biggest critiques when it comes to performances on the pitch or interactions with the media.
In the latest, the 'Rawalpindi Express', who had earlier said that Babar will never become a 'brand', took another dig at the Pakistan captain while praising the effort of Azam Khan and touting him as a captaincy candidate. The former pacer fired shots at Babar by saying that it's not about winning ICC awards.
"I found Azam Khan as a responsible guy who can build the innings, not just slog. He spoke smartly in the interview as well, and it felt nice to hear him speak like that as he talked about his performance. When I was playing 20 years ago, I didn't care how I spoke. But in today's era, being in media is a part of your job. I can only indicate and pin-point for you, ‘this is a problem, please go and correct it. It's for your own benefit'. He (Azam) looked like a captaincy material with the way he spoke," Akhtar said on Suno News.
"When Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shahid Afridi, and Abdul Razzaq used to play, they would say, ‘the whole ground and its crowd is mine. I control the atmosphere in this place'. And Azam was controlling that. That's how you become a star. It's not just about winning ICC Player of the Year awards, no no. The things Azam did… crowd backed him, he took their ownership. He was like, ‘I'm here to run the show," he added.
For his mercurial performance with the bat, Babar was bestowed with the ICC Player of the Year award for 2022.
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