Former Pakistan player attacks PCB over treatment of player
Former Pakistan spinner Saeed Ajmal called out the Pakistan Cricket Board over their treatment of batsman Babar Azam and said that the way they were treating him, would leave no one at the mantel of Pakistan cricket.
Azam was singled out in how he approached his batting during Pakistan’s disastrous campaign at the Champions Trophy. Hosting an ICC tournament after a long period of time, early losses to New Zealand and India relegated them out of the semifinal stage of the tournament. Many former Pakistan cricketers took the opportunity to lambast the players and most singled out Azam and his approach.
“Aapke paas ek hi toh star hai (You have only one star). If you degrade him also, then how will your cricket run? These are the big issues. Our former cricketers should keep their mouths shut,” Ajmal said to Sportstar. “As a cricketer, one must realise that bad patches are part of a player’s career. You can’t play cricket the same way all your life. Even if you were Sachin Tendulkar, you couldn’t score 100 runs in every match,” he added.
The PCB made immediate changes, as they’ve been known to do after a poor tournament. This time it led to the axing of Mohammad Rizwan as captain of the T20 team and then dropping both him and Azam.
“Look, the way you’ve removed them is wrong. It’s not like they are the only ones who haven’t scored while others have. That’s not the case. Ideally, the selectors should sit down with Babar and discuss rest so that he can come back stronger,” Ajmal stated.
“Babar and Rizwan are great players. Their stats are as good as anyone’s, but the only difference is that they don’t bat aggressively, but they still score runs. Our guys have suddenly realised that in international cricket, everyone plays aggressively.
Come on, what aggression are we talking about? If they are your proven matchwinners, you don’t need aggression. Even legends like Virat often pace their innings slowly before attacking, that’s his style,” added Ajmal.