Ramiz Raja: “If you want to find fault in his batting, it’s his batting against spin upfront when he starts the innings. He is not as fluent as he is when he is facing pace”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ramiz Raja said Babar Azam’s big batting weakness is not being able to play spin bowling properly at the beginning of his innings.
He noted that the 29-year-old needs to find the root of the problem, whether it be his footwork or mindset, and fix it.
On top of that, Ramiz also urged Azam to add the sweep shot to his arsenal as he will need to utilise it on slower pitches.
“If you want to find fault in his batting, it’s his batting against spin upfront when he starts the innings. He is not as fluent as he is when he is facing pace,” he told Star Sports as quoted by Cricket Pakistan.
“I don’t know whether it’s his footwork, whether it’s in his mind, or whether he doesn’t have too many options because he doesn’t play the sweep shot. On slow pitches, you need to play the sweep shot.”
Azam stepped down as Pakistan captain in all three formats after the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, where he scored 320 runs in nine matches, which included four fifties, at an average of 40.
After winning their first two games against the Netherlands and Sri Lanka, the men in green lost their next four to India, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa.
Despite bouncing back with consecutive victories over Bangladesh and New Zealand, they failed to advance to the semi-finals.
Pakistan ended their campaign in dismal fashion as England thrashed them by 93 runs.
Azam will now play for Pakistan in their three-match Test series against Australia, which gets underway on December 14 in Perth.
Pakistan Squad for Australia Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi