Former Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik stated that if he was in Babar Azam's place he would have stepped down from the role of captaincy as the Green Shirts had a poor run in the T20 World Cup 2024 where they failed to qualify for the Super 8.
Pakistan lost two of their four group games against USA and India. They managed to win against Canada and Ireland but were already out of the tournament before they defeated the Irish.
The team has been under heavy criticism and the skipper, Babar is facing most of the backlash.
“I immediately would have resigned from the captaincy and directed all of my focus on my cricket. It happened to me once and I was offered the role again in 2009-10 but I did not accept the offer. The reason was simple, I just wanted to focus on my cricket so if I were in his place, I would have resigned immediately,” Malik stated while talking on a local sports channel.
“I am not just saying this, my argument is backed by Babar’s numbers as captain but I am willing to sideline the statistics if he shows improvement and plays well for the country and team then he should definitely continue as captain. But there is no improvement,” he added.
Malik then went on to list down Babar’s run as captain in international events including three T20 World Cups (2021, 2022 and 2024), one ODI World Cup (2023) and two Asia Cups (2022 and 2023) without winning a single tournament.
Not just the T20 World Cup, Babar and Co have been on a dismal run recently in T20I cricket. They failed to win a five-match T20I series against New Zealand at home as the series resulted in a 2-2 draw with one match washed out due to rain.
The Men in Green then toured Ireland for three T20Is in May and in the first T20I, they were defeated by the Irish for the first time in a T20I but went on to win the series by 2-1.
As the series came to an end, Pakistan toured England for four T20Is ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024 where it heavily rained in two T20Is and England won the remaining and the series was won by the home side.
- Babar Azam
