Babar Azam, the Pakistani team's captain, received harsh criticism from legendary bowler Wasim Akram for refusing to give up his batting position. In their opening two games of the T20 World Cup 2022, Pakistan lost to India and Zimbabwe twice in a row. As a result, their prospects of making the semi-finals are low because they will require specific outcomes to go their way.
Since Pakistan was defeated by Zimbabwe in their previous match, Babar has been under scrutiny, and the talented batter has taken a lot of heat for his poor captaincy. The 28-year-old has also struggled to get going with the bat, and after two poor performances, the pressure is now mounting on him to perform.
Akram believes that Babar has held the opening position for a significant period of time and questioned why there haven't been any experimentation at the top. He went on to say that Babar had played more for himself than for the team, and he wished for him to learn how to sacrifice for the good of the team.
“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 said on Pakistan sports show - The Pavillion as he slammed Pakistan skipper.
“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,” Akram said.
“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,” he added.