Jason Gillespie: “In Lahore, I had conversations with Babar Azam and Naseem Shah. I told Babar to play his natural game freely”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Pakistan red-ball head coach Jason Gillespie revealed he spoke to limited overs captain Babar Azam and urged him to “play his natural game freely”.
Azam’s future as Pakistan’s white-ball skipper remains up in the air following the men in green’s disappointing performance in the 2024 T20 World Cup.
Despite the 29-year-old’s challenges with the captaincy role, Gillespie insisted it is important for him to keep scoring runs and bat with total freedom as he is a crucial piece of the team’s batting line-up.
“In Lahore, I had conversations with Babar Azam and Naseem Shah. I told Babar to play his natural game freely,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
Azam recently captained Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup and amassed 122 runs in four matches at an average of 40.66 and a strike-rate of 101.66.
The men in green kicked off their campaign with losses to the United States of America and India before fighting back to beat Canada and Ireland.
Even though they won their last two group stage games, Pakistan failed to book their spot in the Super Eights.
Pakistan Squad for 2024 T20 World Cup: Babar Azam (capt), Saim Ayub, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Azam Khan (wk), Usman Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Amir, Abbas Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed
[TS_Poll id=”124″]