Babar Azam: “Personally I plan to deal with him and the rest of the Indian bowling by playing [my] natural game”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Pakistan batsman Babar Azam has revealed that he personally plans to “deal with” India pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah.

Azam’s comments come ahead of Pakistan’s highly-anticipated World Cup clash against India in Manchester on Sunday.

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Bumrah has taken five wickets in two matches in the World Cup at an average of 19.20. It should be noted that India’s third match against New Zealand was washed out, thus that game is not included in the stats.

Despite Bumrah having made his presence felt in India’s matches against South Africa and Australia, Azam made it clear that Pakistan have “nothing special planned for him”.

“There is nothing special planned for him,” Azam was quoted as saying by Geo.tv. “We won’t change plans for Bumrah. Personally I plan to deal with him and the rest of the Indian bowling by playing [my] natural game. I’ll just be out there and apply myself.

“Their bowling is very good. But we have faced England’s pace attack which was quite potent. We did well against them.”

Pakistan will play India in Manchester, and the men in green will be looking to snap their winless streak against their arch-rivals as India have triumphed in their six World Cup meetings to date.

However, Pakistan can take confidence from the fact that they demolished India by 180 runs in the Champions Trophy final in 2017.

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