Wahab Riaz: “In ODIs, Pakistan heavily relies on their top order trio of Imam, Fakhar, and Babar”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Wahab Riaz, the former left-arm speedster, has admitted that Pakistan have grown accustomed to relying on the top order trio of Imam-ul-Haq, Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam to score big runs.
Imam and Zaman open the batting, while Azam, who captains the men in green, usually bats at number three.
Wahab noted should there be an instance where all three of them fail to score runs, Pakistan have a tendency to collapse as their middle order can be very unstable at times.
The 38-year-old from Lahore wants this reliance to stop and pointed out that all the batsmen in the team should be capable of holding their own and making runs.
“In ODIs, Pakistan heavily relies on their top order trio of Imam, Fakhar, and Babar,” he told Cricket Pakistan.
Pakistan recently defeated Sri Lanka 2-0 in a Test series and Afghanistan 3-0 in an ODI series before featuring in the Asia Cup, where they fell short of qualifying for the final.
Currently, they are in action in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, where Imam has made scores of 15, 12 and 36 in Pakistan’s first three matches against the Netherlands, Sri Lanka and India respectively.
Zaman only played against the Netherlands, scoring 12 runs, before being replaced by Abdullah Shafique as a result of his bad form that has persisted for quite some time.
Azam, meanwhile, wasn’t at his best against the Netherlands and Sri Lanka as he struck 5 and 10 respectively. However, he showed signs of recovering some form in the India match as he made 50.
Pakistan defeated the Netherlands and Sri Lanka before losing to India.
Their next match will be against Australia on October 20 in Bengaluru.
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