Pakistan were whitewashed against Australia in the recently concluded three-match Test series. Ahmed Shahzad has blamed the experienced players for this defeat and it seems that he was indirectly attacking Babar Azam. Babar Azam had a terrible series against Australia in which he failed to score a single fifty-plus score in six innings. Babar was constantly bothered by Australian captain Pat Cummins and seemed clueless in the face of the strong Australian bowling attack.
Babar Azam was one of the players in the team who had previously traveled to Australia and still failed to lead from the front in the series. He is going through the worst phase of his career with the bat as he too failed in the 2023 ODI World Cup after which he was asked to step down as captain. Babar Azam has played eight Test matches in Australia and has scored 404 runs at an average of just 25.25, which includes one and a half centuries.
Recently, in an interview, Ahmed Shahzad was asked to share his opinion on the whitewashing suffered by Pakistan in Australia, to which he said: “It is unfortunate that Australia has whitewashed us once again. There is no justification for defeat and nor should it be justified. “The senior players who were expected to perform, who have played in Australia more than once, didn’t click.”
“I think this is the most important reason for our defeat, because the seniors need to perform on these tours. “This is a big nation, with a big bowling attack, so experienced bowlers should lead from the front and that was missing for us,” he added.
See: Ahmed Shahzad’s indirect criticism of Babar Azam for his poor performance in Australia
Ahmad Shahzad believes Pakistan’s senior players should have stood up and performed better in Tests in Australia 💯 @iamAhmadshahzad also praised Shan Masood’s captaincy and Pakistan’s bowling unit for their efforts 👏🏼👏🏼 #AUSvsPAK @ MHafeez22 @WahabViki pic.twitter.com/CqYzlkkCoV
– Farid Khan (@_FaridKhan) January 8, 2024
Ahmed Shahzad also talks about the positive aspects of the series for Pakistan. One of the positives according to Shahzad was the captaincy of Shan Masood. He said: “One of the positives was the land we took, we hadn’t taken it before. We got to see Shan’s (Shan Masood) captaincy, he was a new captain and this was his first series which was tough but we got a glimpse of some good tactical decisions made by him. However, we need to rectify the mistakes soon and play with our best players in the future to stay on the winning path.”
Shan Masood took over the Test captaincy from Babar Azam and this was his first Test series as captain of Pakistan. He was also one of the players who failed to perform in the series with the bat. The top order was faceless against the Australian bowlers while the lower-middle order saw some commendable performances from players like Mohammad Rizwan and Aamer Jamal.
Pakistan will now take on New Zealand in a five-match T20I series in which Shaheen Shah Afridi will lead the team and Mohammad Rizwan will be his deputy. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan will not open the batting in the series for Pakistan and will bat in their ODI positions of No.3 and No.4 respectively.
