Ramiz Raja: “What is the benefit of Babar Azam’s talent if he will not lead the team to a win? What is the benefit of Fakhar Zaman to play the opening slot if he can’t play like Rohit Sharma?”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja has questioned the benefit of having players like batsman Babar Azam and opener Fakhar Zaman if they don’t lead the national team to victory on a consistent basis.

Ramiz’s comments comes after Pakistan lost to arch-rivals India by 89 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method in their World Cup clash on Sunday.

India’s victory extended their unbeaten streak against Pakistan as they have now won all seven of their meetings against their arch-rivals in the World Cup.

To make matters worse, Pakistan have now only won one of the five World Cup games they have played.

Azam has made scores of 22, 63, 30 and 48, while Zaman has scored 22, 36, 0 and 62.

Despite this, Ramiz feels that there is a stark difference between India and Pakistan as someone like Azam, who has been compared to Virat Kohli, is unable to replicate what the Indian skipper can do with the bat.

As for Zaman, Ramiz believes he should play like India opener Rohit Sharma, but he has not been able to do so consistently.

“What is the benefit of Babar Azam’s talent if he will not lead the team to a win? What is the benefit of Fakhar Zaman to play the opening slot if he can’t play like Rohit Sharma? The difference between the two teams was that when the Indian batsmen became set, they [pushed] their batting till the end,” Ramiz was quoted as saying by Dawn.

Pakistan’s next World Cup match will be against South Africa at Lord’s on Sunday.

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