‘TV pe baith kar baatein karna asaan, jis ne mashwara dena ha mera number sub ke pass hai’: Babar Azam

Pakistan cricket captain Babar Azam has a defiant reply for all his critics.

“For the last 3 years I was performing, I was also captaining, I don’t think there is any pressure on me. Team decisions are taken by the coaches and the captain, but if anyone wants to give advice, everyone has my number. It’s easy to sit on TV and talk,” Babar Azam said in a press conference.

Bat bhi sahi hai agar ap bohat ziada mukhlis hein babar ke sath to to dunia ko btany ki kya zarorat hai, personally message krdo apni suggesion. #BabarAzam𓃵 #PAKvsENG #Captaincy #Sehwag pic.twitter.com/8GB8CGztDc

— Wasim Sarwar (@MuhammadWa97681) November 10, 2023

Azam has been criticised heavily by fans, analysts and former cricketers after Pakistan’s poor performance at the World Cup.

“We have a net run rate plan in our mind, we will pursue it and how we 10 overs and what to play later is completely planned. If Fakhar Zaman plays 20 or 30 overs, we can get the required net run rate,” he said as Pakistan stares down at nearly impossible odds to make it to the semi-finals.

The captain of the national team said, “My performance was not such that people say that there was pressure on me, my goal was to finish well as a batsman. I wanted to try to win, and I bat according to the situation. We plan carefully, but sometimes the conditions don’t favor us to play freely. There are different conditions at each venue. We came to India for the first time, we didn’t know the conditions, and I believe we couldn’t perform as per expectations.”

Talking about the difficulty in reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup, Babar Azam said, “The match against Afghanistan and South Africa should have been won. We will learn from mistakes, the margin for error is very low at this level.”

On the question of the future of his captaincy, Babar said that right now the focus is on the next match.