Shahid Afridi: “He will be back with a big match-winning innings soon”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former interim Pakistan chief selector Shahid Afridi has backed captain Babar Azam to start playing “big match-winning innings soon”.
Azam had a number of strong performances in the recent series against New Zealand, but only one of them – his 66 in the first ODI – resulted in Pakistan winning the match.
He made 79 and 4 in the second and third ODIs respectively, but the men in green lost both matches and subsequently, the series as well.
The 28-year-old also struck 161, 14, 24 and 27 in the two-Test series, but both matches ended as a draw.
Despite Pakistan coming off a subpar home season that also included them being whitewashed 3-0 in their Test series against England, Afridi is confident that Azam will be back scoring plenty of runs and leading his side to victory in the near future.
“He will be back with a big match-winning innings soon,” the iconic power-hitter was quoted as saying by Cricwick.
With the results not having gone Pakistan’s way during their last two series on home soil, there has been increasing speculation that Azam could be stripped of the captaincy in one or more formats.
Nothing has been set in stone so far, but top order batsman Shan Masood has been earmarked as a potential successor in ODIs.
Azam will now captain the Peshawar Zalmi in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), which will be held from February 13 to March 19 in Karachi, Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi.
He was traded to the team from the Karachi Kings in return for Pakistan big-hitters Haider Ali and Shoaib Malik.
Peshawar Zalmi Squad for PSL 8: Babar Azam, Rovman Powell, Bhanuka Rajapaksa (Sri Lanka), Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Sherfane Rutherford, Wahab Riaz, Arshad Iqbal, Danish Aziz, Mohammad Haris, Aamer Jamal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Saim Ayub, Salman Irshad, Usman Qadir, Haseebullah Khan, Sufyan Muqeem, James Neesham, Khurram Shahzad, Haris Sohail and Richard Gleeson
[TS_Poll id=”51″]