Pakistan pacer Hasan Ali believes captain Babar Azam hasn’t performed badly in recent ICC tournaments, apart from the 2023 World Cup in
India. He also referred to the Pakistan white-ball captain as the ‘king’ of their batting unit and suggested that he saw improvement in him in
all facets as well. However, Babar was playing in India for the first time at the ODI World Cup and finished as the third-highest run-getter for Pakistan with 320 runs in nine matches, averaging 40. While he struck four half-centuries, he couldn’t play enough match-winning performances as Pakistan suffered a group-stage exit.

Speaking to Cricket Pakistan, Hasan claimed: “He is the king of Pakistan’s batting lineup, and he should improve. I should improve; everyone should improve. And you can see that he has also improved. It’s not like he hasn’t done it. Wherever he has performed in batting, I don’t think he has given a bad performance anywhere, except in India in the recent World Cup, where he didn’t score a century.”

However, Babar Azam has been under pressure since Pakistan’s humiliating group-stage exit from the T20 World Cup 2024 as well. Pakistan faced a shocking loss to the USA, followed by another close defeat to India as well, which prompted the PCB chief to express the need for “major surgery” as well.

“I don’t regret it. Obviously, I wanted to play, and I wanted to perform and play. I don’t want to play without performance, and it’s neither in my nature nor do I want to play that kind of cricket, and I never have. So I don’t regret it because the management had already told me that I was Haris Rauf’s replacement only for the Ireland and England tours. So when Haris gets fit, you will automatically be out,” he concluded.