Babar backs struggling teammates ahead of the World Cup
Despite starting off with a flourish, Pakistan exited the Asia Cup 2023 without making it to the finals. Besides their poor run towards the end of the tournament, the Men in Green were also plagued with loss of form for key players, and injuries.
Babar is, however, not dismayed by this turn of events.
Speaking to the press ahead of the team’s departure to India for the Cricket World Cup, the captain stated that his side had learnt from the mistakes made in the Asia Cup.
“Although we could not deliver the way we could,” Babar said. “But we have learnt from our mistakes, as individuals and as a team. We have discussed all our mistakes as a team with the support staff. Asia Cup was a different tournament, World Cup is an entirely different [tournament].”
Babar Azam was at his brilliant best as he scored a superb century against New Zealand at the 2019 World Cup.
He went on to state that the team had worked on the specific issues that they had faced in the tournament.
“We know we have lapsed in fielding and in our wicket-taking abilities in the middle overs but we are going to work on it and hopefully will not be repeating them as we have made plans accordingly.”
Several Pakistan players had a poor run in the tournament, including Fakhar Zaman (batting average of 16.25 in the Asia Cup), Shadab Khan (bowling average 40.83) and Mohammed Nawaz (bowling average 94). Babar, however, supported his players, adding that proven performers needed even stronger backing.
“You need to back your struggling player more because they are being criticized from the outside. Giving them confidence in the dressing room becomes even more important because these are the same boys who have won you consistently.”
Discussing Naseem Shah’s unfortunate injury, Babar elaborated on Hasan Ali’s selection into the side.
“Of course we will miss Naseem Shah as Shaheen [Afridi] and Naseem bowling together gave us a different edge. It was not easy to pick his replacement, but we all sat together and got input from [chief selector] Inzamam-ul-Haq.
“We went with Hasan Ali because he has experience. He has played the World Cup before. I cannot comment who will bowl the new ball or the old ball, as we cannot reveal our strategies right now. But we have not made any concrete plans right now, it will become more clear to us when we travel to India and assess the conditions.”
He stressed on the fact that Pakistan can achieve success only as a team.
“We don’t get results as individuals, we get results as a team. There are ups-and-downs always but making changes does not help the team unity. As a team, we play match-to-match and we are eying the World Cup. We have nine matches to win before we can win the World Cup.”
For most of the Pakistan squad, this will be their first-ever experience of playing in India. Babar, however, maintained that the side wasn’t taking too much pressure and was looking forward to play in India.
“Although we have not played in India before, we are not taking too much pressure. We have done our research and we have heard the conditions are similar to how they play out in other Asian countries.”
Pakistan will play two warm-up games, against New Zealand and Australia respectively, in the lead up to the Cricket World Cup. They begin their tournament journey against Netherlands on 6 October in Hyderabad.