Josh Hazlewood: “Probably his weakness early [on was] we used to bowl quite wide to him and he’d, probably more in Test cricket, nick to the slips a few times”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Josh Hazlewood, the Australia pace bowler, pointed out that back in the day, he used to “bowl quite wide” to Babar Azam as the Pakistan captain had a tendency to nick the ball to the slips.
Hazlewood noted that this mostly occurred in Test cricket, but admitted that the Australian bowling attack used to try and lure the 28-year-old into the same trap every time.
Azam has come leaps and bounds since then and has established his reputation as one of the elite run-scorers in world cricket today.
“Probably his weakness early [on was] we used to bowl quite wide to him and he’d, probably more in Test cricket, nick to the slips a few times,” Hazlewood said in a Fox Cricket YouTube video where the Australian team picked their current ODI World XI.
Azam has been in solid form in the last couple of months as he amassed 76 runs in the Test series against Sri Lanka at an average of 25.33.
He subsequently scored 113 runs in three ODIs against Afghanistan, which included two fifties, at an average of 37.66.
Following this, he finished with 207 runs in five matches in the Asia Cup, which included a top score of 151, at an average of 51.75.
Currently, Azam is in India with the rest of the Pakistan team for the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, which got underway on October 5.
The men in green started their campaign with a comfortable 81-run win over the Netherlands.
Their next match will be against Sri Lanka on October 10 in Hyderabad.
Pakistan Squad for 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam (capt), Mohammad Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Salman Ali Agha, Shadab Khan, Usama Mir, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Hasan Ali
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