Pakistan captain Babar Azam has been criticized by Pakistan legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis over his consistent need to open the batting for Pakistan despite his poor form. The duo are among two of the greatest fast bowlers to have ever played the game of cricket and they have come out in arms against the Pakistan skipper after the team's loss against Zimbabwe in the ongoing 2022 T20 World Cup.
Waqar believes that the opening slot is the easiest to bat in T20 cricket, and Pakistan's opening duo of Babar and Mohammad Rizwan have not let the team experiment despite tinkering with other aspects of the team. The former fast bowler is of the opinion that because of this Pakistan's opening reserves have been left without a successor at a time when both batters have been failing consistently.
“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, so 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 said on the Pakistan sports show - 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,” he added.
Adding to this, Waqar's former bowling partner Wasim Akram revealed that he faced similar issues with Babar Azam while being his coach at the Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), where the batter refused to give up his position for the team despite going through a terrible patch of form. Both players have accused Babar of being selfish and insecure.
“All of these things begin at the top. And at the top is your captain. Suppose your captain plays for himself and is insecure. If your captain scores run and let 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 said.
“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.
Having lost back-to-back to India and then Zimbabwe, Pakistan will need a miracle to get through to the semi-finals of the marquee event.
