Jason Gillespie shockingly calls Babar Azam 'world-class' despite recent failures

Pakistan National Cricket Team red-ball head coach Jason Gillespie has come forward to defend the white-ball captain Babar Azam, who has been going through a lean patch for an extended period of time.

Babar Azam has emerged as the best batter from Pakistan in the last few years and he has played some crucial knocks for his team. The 29-year-old, at a point in time, was on a record-breaking spree and he left the cricket world stunned with his performances.

However, that is now the past, and now at present, he is just struggling to score runs for his team across all three formats. It was expected that he would return to his best in the home Tests against Bangladesh National Cricket Team, but that hasn't been the case and Babar Azam has continued to disappoint his fans across the globe.

In the first Test at a batting-friendly Rawalpindi track, Babar Azam returned with scores of 0 and 22 to face heavy criticism. Also, things didn't change for him in the second Test at the same venue as he registered scores of 31 and 11.

In Tests, he has gone 16 innings without hitting a fifty, and overall, since January 2023, Babar Azam has scored just 317 runs from eight Tests at an average of 21.13, with his best score being 41.

Babar Azam's recent failures have had a direct impact on the performance of the Pakistan National Cricket Team in international cricket, as they have been struggling to get going and have been extremely poor in the multi-nation tournaments.

Despite all these struggles, Jason Gillespie has shown faith in Babar Azam, labeling him as a world-class player. Gillespie also expressed confidence in the 29-year-old returning to his best very soon.

"Babar is a quality player, and he’s got a couple of starts. A bit like quite a few of our players, he hasn’t been able to convert starts. But Babar is a world-class player he’s very close, I feel it. I am really confident that we are going to see Babar scoring big runs very soon. He’s too good a player and looking forward to seeing him doing well,” Jason Gillespie said in the press conference after the day’s play.

There are obviously a few things we were hoping Shaheen can work on - Jason Gillespie

Babar Azam isn't the only Pakistan star struggling at the moment as the premier pacer Shaheen Afridi has also been out of form. He was dropped from the playing XI for the second Test after picking just 2 wickets in the first Test that too after Pakistan had bowled over 160 overs.

Jason Gillespie, meanwhile, expressed confidence in Shaheen Afridi's abilities and revealed that the pacer has been told to work on a few things and hoped that he would return to his very best.

"There are obviously a few things we were hoping Shaheen can work on. He’s obviously had a very eventful time in his personal life as well. So, all that are being considered, we want Shaheen Afridi to be at his very best for as much cricket as possible,” Gillespie said.

“He’s an all-format player and we have got a heavy schedule. We have to make sure that he’s fit and firing and is bowling at his very best so that he’s able to play as many games as possible for Pakistan,” Gillespie added.