Former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq has questioned the current Pakistan captain Babar Azam’s ability to produce stellar performances in big games after his poor showing against India in the 2024 T20 World Cup as well. Despite having averages of over 40 and 56 in T20Is and
ODIs, respectively, Babar has often failed to live up to the expectations in ICC events. He often gets compared to star India player Virat Kohli as well.
Talking on a local sports show, Misbah said, “Babar Azam is playing his fourth World Cup [as captain]. When the pressure situation comes, he needs to prove himself – this is where you see, am I better, or is Virat Kohli better? Babar had to step up and now we are almost out [of the T20 World Cup],” said Misbah.
However, Virat Kohli has amazing numbers in T20 World Cups with an average of almost 72 which came at a strike rate of 130.67 in 29 games as well. But, he failed to do well so far, scoring 1 and 4 in India’s two games against Ireland and Pakistan, respectively as well.
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“No one counts your performances without pressure. He is such a big player with lots of performances, so this is the stage to take your team forward and inspire them, but he is unable to do that. Since 2019, we have three T20 World Cups and one Cricket World Cup, but he could not perform as he should have, which is one of the reasons behind Pakistan’s struggles,” said Misbah-ul-Haq.
On the other hand, Waqar Younis also opened up on Pakistan’s approach to the T20 World Cup 2024 as well.
“The road going forward is very tricky and very bumpy at this stage for Pakistan. They have themselves to blame. They can’t really blame anybody. The opportunity was there. It was an easy game to win,” he responded. “There were 57/1 at the halfway stage. I thought maybe 10 runs short at the halfway mark. They should have been sitting somewhere close to 75 because you lost only one wicket and you were sitting at 57. You should have been a little bit more than that,” Younis elaborated.
“Pakistan have played poor cricket so far. From here on, Pakistan are once again relying on other teams to do well, and of course, winning the rest of their two games, and hoping that Ireland beat the USA and then India beat the USA,” he observed. “There are a lot of ifs and buts now and it’s always been the case like this with Pakistan. Pakistan need to think hard and the cricket board also needs to think hard that why this is happening all the time. So there are plenty of things to think about,” Younis concluded.
