Ahmed Shahzad Takes A Dig At Babar Azam For Not Performing In The Test Series vs Australia

Pakistan was whitewashed against Australia in the recently concluded three-match Test series. Ahmed Shahzad has blamed the experienced players for this defeat and it looks like he was taking an indirect dig at Babar Azam. Babar Azam had a terrible series against Australia where he failed to get a single fifty-plus score in six innings. Babar was constantly troubled by Australian skipper Pat Cummins and was looking clueless against the strong Aussie bowling attack.

Babar Azam was one of the players in the squad who had previously travelled to Australia and still, he failed to lead from the front in the series. He is having the worst phase of his career with the bat as he also failed in the 2023 ODI World Cup after which he was asked to step down from the captain’s role. Babar Azam has played eight Test matches in Australia and has scored 404 runs at an average of just 25.25 which includes a century and a half-century.

Recently in an interview, Ahmed Shahzad was asked to share his opinion on the whitewash suffered by Pakistan in Australia to which he said, “It is unfortunate that we have been whitewashed by Australia once again. There is no justification to defeat and one should not justify it too. The senior players who were expected to perform, who have played in Australia more than once, did not click.”

“I think this is the biggest reason for our defeat because the seniors need to perform on these tours. This is a big nation, with a big bowling attack so experienced players should lead from the front and this was lacking from us,” he added.

Watch- Ahmed Shahzad’s Indirect Dig At Babar Azam For Poor Performance In Australia

Ahmad Shahzad believes Pakistan’s senior players should have stood up and performed better in Tests in Australia ?@iamAhmadshahzad also praised Shan Masood’s captaincy and Pakistan’s bowling unit for their efforts ???? #AUSvsPAK @MHafeez22 @WahabViki pic.twitter.com/CqYzlkkCoV

— Farid Khan (@_FaridKhan) January 8, 2024

Ahmed Shahzad also talks about the positives for Pakistan in the series. One of the positives according to Shahzad was the captaincy of Shan Masood. He said, “One of the positives was the wickets we took, we haven’t taken these before. We got to see Shan’s (Shan Masood) captaincy, he was a new captain and this was his first series which was difficult but we saw glimpses of some good tactical decisions taken by him. However, we need to rectify the mistakes soon and play our best players in the future to keep on the path of winning.”

Shan Masood took over the Test captaincy from Babar Azam and this was his first Test series as a captain for Pakistan. He was also one of the players who failed to perform in the series with the bat. The top order was faceless against the Australian bowlers whereas the lower-middle order had some commendable performances from the likes of Mohammad Rizwan and Aamer Jamal.

Pakistan will now face New Zealand in a five-match T20I series where Shaheen Shah Afridi will be leading the team and Mohammad Rizwan will be his deputy. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan will not be opening the batting in the series for Pakistan and will bat at their ODI positions of No.3 and No.4 respectively.