"You Can't Even Rate Them In Pakistan" - Aaqib Javed On Pakistan's Middle Order
Former Pakistan cricketer Aaqib Javed questioned the consistency of Pakistan’s middle order, claiming that they are not highly rated even in their home country.
The previous generation of Pakistani batters not limited to Younis Khan, Inzamam-ul-Haq, and Mohammad Yousuf were highly capable players who could be relied on in tough times. Comparing them to the newer batch of batters, Javed said they don’t inspire the same level of confidence.
“We don’t have players like Younis Khan, Inzamam, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik, or Mohammad Hafeez. They were consistent through 10-12 years. They were among top-10 around the world with consistency.”
“When you talk about the middle-order now, we have Asif Ali, Khushdil, and Iftikhar.. where will you rate these three? You can’t even rate them in Pakistan,” Aaqib said in an interaction with paktv.tv.
“In all three formats, we only have Babar who has proved himself” – Aaqib Javed
Javed said that the Pakistani batters are quite inconsistent and only the skipper, Babar Azam, has proved his credentials across all formats. Mohammad Rizwan has shown he is brilliant in T20I cricket but not as much for the other two formats.
“Why do we call Babar Azam the best in the world? Because he is no.1 in the ICC rankings. Whenever he bats, we feel safe. If you take a look at the whole team, we have Imam-ul-Haq, who has proved that he has talent and temperament.”
“Babar is there. Rizwan is there in T20s. In all three formats, we only have Babar who has proved himself. I can’t remember any other name. If you look at India or any other top team, you will see 5-6-7 players who are consistently in top-10 or top-20 in all three formats. This is the reason for the gap,” he also added.
