The former PCB chief selector, Mohammad Wasim, has claimed that Babar Azam wasn't willing to accept changes to the side.
Former Pakistan chief selector Mohammad Wasim has revealed that white ball captain Babar Azam showed stubbornness during his tenure, which hindered him from making some of the changes he wanted to create in the team. Pakistan national squad is going through a tough phase with the side underperforming in all three formats of the game. It all began with the 2023 ODI World Cup in host country India, where Babar Azam and Co. failed to reach the playoffs. Things got worse for the Green Army in the 2024 T20 World Cup, where they lost to the debutant and inexperienced USA and were knocked out of the group-stage fixture.
Meanwhile, the recent Test loss against Bangladesh was the final nail in the coffin for them, as PCB finally made big calls to drop the likes of left-arm pacer Shaheen Afridi from playing XI in the second Test match. Notably, Babar Azam was appointed as the Pakistan team’s captain in 2020, but he stepped down after the 2023 ODI World Cup. However, a change in the Pakistan Cricket Board management has brought him back to the captaincy role in white-ball format.
Former PCB chief selector Mohammad Wasim revealed that he tried extremely hard to convince Babar Azam to make some changes in the squad, but the 29-year-old captain was very stubborn and didn’t allow him to make some of the crucial changes for the team. The 46-year-old cricketer revealed that it was extremely painful for him to make Babar Azam understand the advantages of such changes, as he was unable to accept the changes in the team.
“It was painful to make him understand the advantages of changes. He was very stubborn, and I overstepped my limitations to get him on board with certain calls. He was not ready to accept changes,” Wasim said on Cricket Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the Rawalpindi-born cricketer also revealed that the coaches in the past named a few of the players who were “cancer” to the team, and he tried to remove players but failed to do so after not getting the captain’s support.
“I will not take names, but four coaches said that a group of players is cancer to the team. If they are part of the squad, Pakistan can’t win. I tried to remove them from the team, but the team management recalled them,” he added further.
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