PAK vs SA: Shoaib Malik Slams Underperforming Batsman As He Recalls His Old Tweet

Former Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik has criticized Imam-ul-Haq for his underwhelming performance in the ongoing ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023.

In the wake of Pakistan’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Afghanistan, their bowlers and middle-order batsmen have faced severe criticism. However, Shoaib Malik has highlighted the opener’s poor return in the tournament and has criticized him.

Imam-ul-Haq was in good form as he entered the World Cup. In his last ODI innings, he had crossed the 50-run mark 5 times. However, the opening batsman has failed to live up to the expectations in the World Cup so far. In 5 innings, he has managed to score a fifty just once when he scored 70 against Australia, and has registered scores of 15, 12, 36, and 17 in the other four matches.

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Shoaib Malik criticizes Imam-ul-Haq:

Speaking on ‘The Pavilion’ show of A Sports, Shoaib Malik was asked about Imam-ul-Haq’s poor returns with the bat. In reply, the former Pakistan cricketer began by recalling one of his tweets from last year where he had a dig at ‘friendships’ in the Pakistan setup. The T20 World Cup-winning cricketer stated that no one was questioning the opener when he was scoring runs with a defensive approach.

“When he was scoring runs consistently with the same strike rate, no sixes, maybe two fours. We were okay as a nation. Why were we ok that time? Why did it not bother us? If you remember, I was the one who tweeted. Now, everyone remembers that. I tweeted, ‘when will we come out of friendships and favours? God helps those who are honest’,” said Shoaib Malik.

“I talked about everything in our system (in the tweet). If I were diplomatic, I wouldn’t shoot myself on the foot when the World Cup squad (T20 World Cup 2022) was about to get announced. It was about the whole infrastructure. And I’m sticking to my tweet,” he added.

With two wins from five matches, Pakistan’s hopes of qualifying for the semifinal are hanging by a thread. They now need to win their remaining four games and hope that other results also go their way in order to progress ahead. They will be in action next against high-flying South Africa before taking on Bangladesh, New Zealand, and England.