Pakistan’s two star players, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, are going through a rough patch with the bat. Their recent performances are a stark contrast to their early career form. Both have been dropped from the T20 team and are failing to meet the team’s expectations in ODIs as well.
Recently, Pakistan lost an ODI series to the West Indies for the first time in 34 years. Babar and Rizwan started the three-match series on a good note. In Pakistan’s winning match, Babar scored 47 off 64 balls, and Rizwan made 53 off 69 balls. But in the second match, Babar was dismissed for a duck, and Rizwan managed just 16 off 38 balls, leading to Pakistan’s defeat. In the series decider, Babar scored 9 off 23 balls, while Rizwan was out on the very first delivery. Pakistan collapsed for 92 runs, losing by 202 runs as the Caribbean side took the series.
This led to harsh criticism of the two star cricketers from Basit Ali. Speaking on the YouTube channel The Game Plan, he said, “They (Babar–Rizwan) are still living off their early career performances. Now they should just be used for advertisements.”
The former Pakistan cricketer added, “They (Babar–Rizwan) don’t listen to the coaches. When it comes to batting advice, they only pretend to listen. They need someone like Inzamam, Yousuf, or Younis Khan to wake them up. But they know no one will do that, because they never allowed anyone to do it before.”
Basit also claimed that Babar’s performance decline is due to ego. However, former Pakistan wicketkeeper-batter Kamran Akmal disagreed on that point, though he still criticized Babar.
“I can confirm that I have never seen any ego in Babar,” Akmal said. “He respects his family and interacts with everyone respectfully. But what I want is that when he steps onto the field, he should not think of himself as bigger than the game. He should put Pakistan above everything else.”
