Pakistan national cricket team captain Shan Masood made a strong statement about the form of superstar batsman Babar Azam after the conclusion of the two-match Test series against the Bangladesh national cricket team at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
Pakistan national cricket team suffered an embarrassing 0-2 defeat at the hands of Bangladesh national cricket team which marked the team’s first ever Test series loss against Bangla Tigers.
Not only that, Pakistan has been struggling in international cricket for a significant period of time across all three formats and one of the major reasons behind that has been a slump in the form of star batsman Babar Azam.
Babar Azam enjoyed a great run in international cricket for years and during his run, he created and broke many records across all formats and soared up the ICC Test, ODI and T20I rankings.
However, that poor run ended last year and a rough patch has begun for Babar Azam. The star batsman has not been able to score runs consistently, especially in red-ball cricket.
The 29-year-old looked terrible in the Test series against the Bangladesh national cricket team. In the first Test on a batting-friendly track, Babar Azam returned with scores of 0 and 22, and in the second Test at the same venue, he registered scores of 31 and 11.
Overall in Tests, Babar Azam has gone 16 innings without reaching a fifty, and since January 2023, he has scored just 317 runs in eight Tests at an average of 21.13, with his best score being 41.
Speaking about Babar Azam’s poor performance after the Test series against the Najmul Hossain Shanto-led side, captain Shan Masood said that they will have to bear the failures of some players including Babar Azam and need to give them more scope to improve. Shan Masood said:
“We will have to work on making the team more consistent. We will have to accept players’ mistakes. It’s not just about Babar Azam: the more consistent the chance you give someone, the better they will perform.”
You will have to look for where to get that player who can be an automatic selection – Shan Masood
Masood also stressed the need to look for players who can become an automatic selection based on their fitness. He also backed Mohsin Naqvi’s statement, saying that they do not have a large pool of players to choose from.
“We will have to look for where to get that player who can be an automatic pick on the current form. Since we are not playing red-ball cricket at present, we don’t have many options to choose from. We are playing with the same squad that we took to Australia and we were successful for Pakistan domestically and internationally,” Masood said.
Shan Masood, at the press conference, also issued an apology to the fans and took responsibility for the defeat.
“As I told them after the first match, I once again take full responsibility for the defeat. I apologize to my nation and I did so in the previous match as well. Our common goal must be to improve our game. Whenever we do not play well, we will hold our hands up and accept it with dignity,” he added.
