Watch: Babar Azam Drops A Dolly Of Kane Williamson, Teammates Left Stunned

Pakistan’s star batter Babar Azam is making the headlines yet again not because of their batting skills but for his howlers on the field. He is all over X (formerly Twitter) for doing something neither he nor his teammates will appreciate. Babar dropped the easiest of catches, “a sitter” and “a dolly” during the 1st of a 5-match T20I series in New Zealand.

Babar Azam displayed the level of fielding intensity of Pakistan and how much the team still needs to work on this department. They were heavily criticized for poor fielding during the Cricket World Cup last year in India and it seems as if they haven’t taken any lessons from their mistakes.

Watch Babar Azam Produce A Howler Moment In Auckland

WHAT WAS THAT BABAR !#PAKvsNZ pic.twitter.com/ENz4PKk4ae

— ??????? (@azatb3654) January 12, 2024

For a fact this is nothing new with the Pakistani team. They make fielding howlers happen every now and then but the most important and most frustrating thing this is that they are reluctant to learn from past mistakes. Babar Azam’s blunder was not the first time (since CWC) that a Pakistan player made a misfield as it was on display during their 3-0 Test series whitewash against Australia too.

While Shaheen Afridi found it difficult to stop the ball from going to the boundary, batsman Abdullah Shafique made it a habit of dropping simple catches in the 1st slip despite Test captain Shan Masood calling him Pakistan’s best slipper. Shafique dropped very simple catches but nothing could have been as simple as the chance Babar Azam had.

He has once again become a laughing object and so is the National team. It seems as if they don’t think of fielding with that much seriousness and it is slowly becoming a norm. Former Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir had even called them the worst fielding sides ever in the history of cricket.

Maybe Babar Azam would have been forgiven had he dropped the catch of any tailender but he in fact dropped New Zealand’s most reliant batter Kane Williamson. The cost of dropped catches is very expensive in the shortest format as every run matters and Williamson after getting the help of Babar went on to score a half century as well.

Pakistan will be happy that Williamson did not do much damage and departed for 57 but now the onus is on Babar Azam to erase that incident from everyone’s minds if he is able to produce something big with his bat in the 2nd innings.

Meanwhile, it was Shaheen Afridi’s decision to bowl first at Eden Park but Pakistan are currently struggling to find a way to stop the flow of runs. Daryl Mitchell is currently at the crease for 47 and the Blackcaps are looking to cross the 220-run mark. The score is currently 164/4 after 15 overs.