Ahmed Shehzad was candid in his assessment of Babar Azam’s struggles during the current T20 World Cup.
New Delhi: Pakistan has witnessed a disappointing T20 World Cup 2024 so far. While they remain alive in the race of securing a berth at Super 8 stage, they have faced one of the biggest upsets in the competition’s history last week when USA defeated Babar Azam’s men in a super over thriller. Interestingly, the USA is playing in the T20 World Cup for the first time in their history. Pakistan, then faced another close defeat at the hands of Indian Team, failing to chase down a 120-run target in New York.
Skipper Babar Azam is facing significant criticism over his leadership, as well his batting performances in the tournament. After failing to make an impact as an opener against USA and India, he came in to bat at no.3, bringing in Saim Ayub in his place as Opener to bat with Mohammad Rizwan. Although the plan didn’t work for both parties involved as Ayub departed on just 6, while Babar, too, scored run-a-ball 33 before in the 15th over.
After his indifferent outings in the T20 World Cup so far, Pakistan’s Ahmed Shehzad launched a scathing critique of Babar Azam’s T20 World Cup performances during a recent appearance on Geo News. The broadcasters in the show had put Shehzad’s in the tournament alongside Babar, Which showed that the former had better strike rate and average in comparison to the Pakistan captain.
“Your strike rate is 112 and average is 26. You haven’t hit a single six in 207 balls in the Powerplay. I admit I could’ve improved on my own performances 8 years ago, but your stats are even worse. You are worse than me, but you are king. You’re a fraud king,” Shehzad said, not mincing his words.
Shehzad didn’t stop at criticizing Babar; he also alleged that the Pakistan captain “ruined” the country’s domestic structure to benefit his acquaintances and suggested that Babar should apologize to the nation for failing to lead the team to ICC titles.
“He could not bring any trophy for Pakistan. After that you have ruined the entire domestic structure, you are such a captain, you cannot unconventionally run the domestic team to bring in your friends,” Shehzad said.
“If you cannot do anything then you can at least do this much that now you should raise your hands and say that I had all the support, PCB gave me everything, but I could not deliver, I got the players of my choice but I could not deliver for Pakistan, I am really really sorry, I am responsible,” he added.