Mohammad Hafeez: “You and Rizwan are very good players, excellent players but you are not the whole team”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan team director and interim head coach Mohammad Hafeez has revealed that it took him two months to convince star batsman Babar Azam that he has to start playing for the team.
He made it clear that Azam and wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan “are not the whole team” and needed to develop a mindset that prioritised Pakistan cricket.
Hafeez’s chat with Azam came at a time where he wanted the 29-year-old to bat at number three in T20Is, even though Azam had been opening the batting with Rizwan for a couple of years.
“It took me about two months to convince Babar Azam that you have to do it for Pakistan and you are not the first one who’s doing it. You are a great player, you are a wonderful player and you are playing great cricket however you have to develop [the] Pakistan team,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
“You and Rizwan are very good players, excellent players but you are not the whole team. We need to develop a team and for that, I want you to come at number 3 because you have been playing this role in ODI cricket for [the] last six years, so it won’t affect you; technically you are very solid.”
Hafeez recently moved on from his dual role as team director and interim head coach following the change in leadership within the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), which saw Zaka Ashraf resign as chairman and Mohsin Naqvi replace him.
Azam is currently captaining the Peshawar Zalmi in the 2024 Pakistan Super League (PSL), while Rizwan is leading the Multan Sultans.
Peshawar Zalmi Squad for PSL 9: Babar Azam (captain), Rovman Powell, Saim Ayub, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Asif Ali, Mohammad Haris, Aamer Jamal, Naveen-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Salman Irshad, Arif Yaqoob, Umair Afridi, Dan Mousley, Haseebullah Khan, Mohammad Zeeshan, Mehran Mumtaz, Luke Wood, Sufiyan Muqeem, Waqar Salamkheil, Arshad Iqbal, Gus Atkinson, Shamar Joseph
Multan Sultans Squad for PSL 9: Mohammad Rizwan (captain), Iftikhar Ahmed, David Willey, Khushdil Shah, Usama Mir, Dawid Malan, Abbas Afridi, Reeza Hendricks, Tayyab Tahir, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Khan, Mohammad Ali, Faisal Akram, Yasir Khan, Chris Jordan, Aftab Ibrahim, Johnson Charles, Mohammad Shehzad
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