Former batsman Kamran Akmal lost his cool and lashed out at captain Babar Azam after Pakistan cricket team was defeated in the fifth T20I against New Zealand at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
Pakistan set what seemed like a huge total of 194 runs, however, the Kiwis chased it with ease, Akmal said.
The former wicket keeper criticized the captaincy skills of the national team skipper Babar Azam, after suffering defeat at the hands of New Zealand.
Taking to his YouTube channel, Akmal slammed Babar, observing that after four years of captaincy, he still doesn’t know how to take a quick decision.
“He does not even know which bowler will change the game,” Akmal stated, adding that two left handers were chewing up the bowling line-up, then asked why Azam did not give the bowling to Iftikhar Ahmed.
“Speaking of their mistakes, they deflect and accuse us of criticism. But our focus is on their captaincy, not their performance. We’re not blind to their abilities.
He (Babar Azam) still doesn’t know how to do captaincy after four years – he doesn’t even know which bowler to send out at what time. It’s no surprise that they lost when they continue to make the same mistakes. We didn’t control our errors, and that’s why they [New Zealand] emerged victorious,” he said.
The 41-year-old also slammed the skipper for giving the ball to Shadab instead of Iftikhar Ahmed in the fifth T20I game. He believed it was a logical choice to go with Ahmed when both left-handed batsmen were on the crease.
“If both the left-handed batsmen were on the crease, the logical choice would have been to give the ball to Iftikhar Ahmed. But instead, we saw the leg-spinner Shadab Khan was given the over and was being continuously beaten by the Blackcaps batters.
It would have been wise to rest him and bring in another all-rounder to give the team a chance to regain their footing,” he concluded.
Akmal was also of the view that Shadab Khan’s dropped catch cost the match, pointing out that he drops catches in all the important matches and still Babar is not dropping him.
