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Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt has unleashed a stinging tirade against current skipper Babar Azam after the Men in Green suffered their second loss in as many games in the T20 World Cup in Australia.
Pakistan suffered a shock 1-run defeat to Zimbabwe in Perth on Thursday after experiencing a nail-biting 4-wicket loss to arch-rivals India last weekend.
While Virat Kohli‘s superhuman effort led to Pakistan's downfall in Melbourne, a poor batting performance was held responsible for the horrible result against the Zimbabweans.
However, what left Salman Butt fuming was Babar Azam's comments after the defeat. Addressing the media, Babar Azam claimed that Pakistan scored 10 runs more than they had expected, which didn't go down well with Salman Butt, who labeled his statement as “foolish”.
Notably, Zimbabwe set a target of 131 for Pakistan to win the match, but Babar Azam and his boys could only score 129, thus losing the contest by a solitary run.
“I couldn't move on from the statement from our captain, our best player yesterday. He said that they scored 10 runs more. Are you saying that even in 130 runs, they scored 10 extra? What was this statement?,” a fuming Salman Butt asked.
What can the bowler do? Do they start hiding opposition players' bats? How was this score big? He said this in presentation!,” Salman Butt added.
Earlier, Pakistani greats, Waqar Younis, and Wasim Akram had launched a scathing attack on Babar Azam, calling him out for his “selfishness”.
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The legendary pacers argued that Babar Azam may have become a great batsman but his captaincy was still a work in progress. The duo even questioned his reluctance to bat down instead of his usual opening position to provide the much-needed stability to Pakistan's vulnerable middle order.
Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram pointed out that to become a great leader Babar Azam needed to focus on how to improve his team's chances of winning and to attain that he must come out of his comfort zone. But he wasn't willing to do so and that's why Pakistan was on the verge of exiting the T20 World Cup in Australia.
“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's 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 Younis said in a conversation with a Pakistani television channel.
“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 Younis added.
“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 Akram said.
“The difference between being a captain and the leader, well that's the difference,” Waqar Younis remarked while taking a subtle dig at Babar Azam.
“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 Akram stated recounting his time with Babar Azam in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
On the other hand, former Pakistan wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal who is related to Babar Azam urged him to step down as the national team's captain after the T20 World Cup.
“See, we can see that. If we had played the same bowling attack in the first match, we wouldn't have let India chase the target. I've been saying this since the England series, but no one listens to ex-cricketers. Being an elder brother, I want to say to Babar that he should leave the captaincy after the T20 World Cup,” Kamran Akmal said on ARY News.
“If you want 22-25,000 runs from him, you have to keep him purely as a player or else he would be under-pressure. If Babar or his father understand this, he should step down,” Kamran Akmal further stated while appealing to the Pakistan skipper.
“He should focus on his cricket like Virat Kohli. Because I can't see any other batsman of this quality in our setup. Pakistan cricket would suffer greatly if Babar doesn't play to his full potential,” Kamran Akmal concluded.
