Salman Butt: “Now the problem is that Babar has scored so much, then he is the only one who scores most of the runs for Pakistan. There is no one with him who can match him”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt said batsman Babar Azam faces intense criticism as “there is no one with him who can match him”.
Azam’s has been facing a lot of heat lately due to his inconsistent form with the bat. Since he is the leader of the batting line-up, everyone expects him to score runs every time.
However, Salman acknowledged that this is not realistic and pointed out that players in the past “were more out of form than Babar”, but were saved from being lambasted since “there were 4-5 other players who used to win matches”.
Since Azam is one of the only match-winners the men in green have, Salman conceded that the spotlight will always be on him until others start stepping up.
“There are two reasons [why Babar is facing so much heat]. No doubt, he is currently Pakistan’s best batter and, I think, the most consistent player of the decade. But the problem is that when a player struggled earlier, they were more out of form than Babar,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
“But with him, there were 4-5 other players who used to win matches, so everyone’s respect used to be saved and it was covered. Now the problem is that Babar has scored so much, then he is the only one who scores most of the runs for Pakistan. There is no one with him who can match him.
“Now, when he is not scoring, it feels like Bakar is not doing anything. Babar has made people habituated by scoring so many runs that people now want him to score lots of runs in every inning. Now there is no other match-winning player with him in the Pakistan team.”
Salman pointed out that Pakistan are to blame for the problem they face as no cricketers have been developed with the mindset of playing with the right technique as too much importance has been placed on power-hitting.
“You can see, the day he (Azam) doesn’t run, you know that the Pakistan team will not win the match. So, this is the problem of Pakistan that you did not develop the players. You tried to develop everyone on the basis of power-hitting, the basis of playing openly. And now you don’t have players with the right techniques,” he said.
Azam was recently involved in Pakistan’s two-Test series against Bangladesh and mustered 64 runs at an average of 16.
Pakistan ended up being beaten 2-0 and will now face England in a three-match Test series from October 7 to 28.
Pakistan Squad for Bangladesh Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Shaheen Shah Afridi
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