Pakistan captain Babar Azam: “To be honest, he still scolds me if I don’t play well or get out by playing a rash shot and I listen to it as a source of blessing”
Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo
Pakistan captain Babar Azam revealed that his father still scolds him if he performs badly in a match.
Azam, who is one of the best batsmen in the world in all three formats, noted that this has been the case since he was a child.
The 26-year-old made scores of 103, 31 and 94 in the three-match ODI series against South Africa, giving him a total of 228 runs at an average of 76.
As for the T20 series, he made 14 and 50 in the first two matches before hammering a career-best 122, which came off 59 balls and included 15 boundaries and four sixes, in the third T20 International.
In the fourth game, he was dismissed for 24 and thus finished with 210 runs in four matches at an average of 52.50 and a strike-rate of 143.83.
Pakistan’s tour of Zimbabwe started on Wednesday and Azam scored two runs in the first T20 International, which the men in green won by 11 runs.
“It’s a blessing for me that my father supported me so much. To be honest, he still scolds me if I don’t play well or get out by playing a rash shot and I listen to it as a source of blessing,” Azam told Pakistan opener Imam-ul-Haq in a video for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) as quoted by ARY Sports.
“This fear gives me tension that if I don’t perform well, I’ll be scolded by my father. Talking about my childhood, my father instructed me not to be with bad company. We used to get angry about this but he told us that you will understand this once you’ll get older.
“Sometimes, he used to come silently otherwise he would come with me. If I get out, I would simply say that I scored this much and got dismissed in this way but he would then scold me for my lies.
“After that, I used to view all over the ground and find whether my father is sitting on not.”