Babar Azam has expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision to shift to the one-down position in Pakistan’s T20I team, a move he made during the recent series against New Zealand.
Babar has excelled as an opener for Peshawar Zalmi in the ninth edition of the PSL, leading the run-scoring charts with 498 runs in nine innings at an impressive average of 62.25.
Following Peshawar Zalmi’s two-run victory against Karachi Kings, Babar was questioned about the significance of his runs as an opener after being demoted to one down spot in Pakistan team.
“I wasn’t under any pressure to score runs as an opener [for Zalmi]. I don’t take pressure of anything. It was Pakistan team’s demand at the time. I did that for Pakistan. If I was asked individually, I wasn’t satisfied with the decision to bat at one down position. However, I did that for Pakistan,” Babar said.
The decision to split the successful opening partnership of Babar and Rizwan during the New Zealand series was made to accommodate Saim Ayub as an opener in the Pakistan team.
Despite his demotion, Babar scored three consecutive fifties in the first three matches of the series, although Pakistan ultimately lost the series 4-1.
During the aforementioned series, Mohammad Rizwan had also said that the management’s decision to split his opening pair with Babar in T20Is was not a fruitful one and had hurt the side.
“You can say that it [breaking the opening pair] has hurt Pakistan. I can say that Babar bhai has a big heart. We both agreed that there is no issue. We both told the management that they can try whatever combination they want, ” Rizwan said after Pakistan lost fourth T20I against New Zealand.
“The difficulty arises when you break things that were already working well. However, management is looking at what can be extracted best from different combinations,” he added.
