Friday 26 / July / 2024
Kolkata: Pakistan skipper Babar Azam dropped a major hint about the future of his captaincy by revealing that he is keen to "lead the rebuild" after Pakistan bowed out of the World Cup 2023 with a 93-run defeat to England on Saturday.
On Friday, Geo News source reported that Babar Azam is likely to step down from captaincy after the conclusion of the World Cup. After the Men in Green missed out on the final semi-final spot and ended the tournament with a massive defeat, Babar said that the team will discuss about positives and he is keen to lead the rebuild.
"We'll take positives from this and discuss mistakes. I'm keen to lead the rebuild," Babar Azam said after the game as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
While reflecting on the team's performance in the game, he expressed dissapointment and specifically pointed out the spinners lacking the ability to take wickets in the middle overs which eventually impacted their performance.
"We conceded a few too many runs. We bowled a few loose deliveries towards the end. And out spinners' aren't taking wickets, which doesn't help. That has a big effect because you need to take wickets in the middle overs. The pitch is very true and the margin of error is very low for fast bowlers, which explains the big scores we have conceded. We will sit together and take stock," Babar added.
Coming to the match, While chasing a target of 338, David Willey in his last international game made Pakistan batters toil hard as they had no answers to his quick swinging deliveries. He made the most of the opportunity as he dismissed Abdullah Shafique and Fakhar Azam back to the pavilion for scores of 0 and 1 respectively.
Skipper Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan stitched up a 51-run partnership driving Pakistan's innings with hopes of ending it on a positive note.
Rizwan held on to his wicket on the other end along with Saud Shakeel. Another promising yet short liver partnership ended with Rizwan walking back to the pavilion. The 25-year-old Gus Atkinson provided the breakthrough to derail Pakistan's innings by dismissing Babar for 38.
Adil Rashid's spin bamboozled Shakeel (29) while Agha Salman's promising knock of 51 was brought to an end by Willey. The rest of the batters crumbled except for Shaheen Sha Afridi and Haris Rauf who showed some fight towards the end.
Afridi's cameo of 25 ended as Atkinson claimed his second wicket of the night, while Rauf's fireworks took Pakistan's score past 200 but his valiant 35-run knock came to an end with Chris Woakes picking up the final wicket.
