Pakistan captain Babar Azam on Monday, May 6, addressed the media in a press conference ahead of the team's departure to Ireland for a three-match T20I series.
Babar was reappointed as captain of Pakistan's white-ball teams in March, with an eye on the upcoming ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024. The 29-year-old replaced Shaheen Afridi, who captained Pakistan in five T20Is away at New Zealand in January and lost 4-1.
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Babar stepped down from captaincy in all formats following Pakistan's group stage exit at the 2023 World Cup, but was requested by the PCB to reconsider as they wanted an experienced figure to lead the Men in Green at the 2024 T20 World Cup.
One of the things that has led to constant scrutiny of Babar is his low strike-rate at the top of the order, given how much the standards of batting in the shortest format have changed in the recent past. He has come under fire for not providing Pakistan with flying starts along with his usual opening partner Mohammad Rizwan.
He shed light on his opening combination with Rizwan and explained what the thinking has been leading towards the T20 World Cup.
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Babar Azam defends his opening combo with Mohammad Rizwan
One of the journalists asked Babar: "In modern-day cricket, the powerplay is of utmost importance. But recently, in the New Zealand series, we saw that the powerplay scores have been below the average score. Have there been any discussions regarding the same in the training camp?"
Here's what Babar said:
As far as I know, our powerplay score is mostly above 50. Yeah, there have been two or three occasions where we scored in the 30s or around 45. If you are saying we should score 100, then it depends on the form.
Rizwan and I have a different style of play, with which we have scored 70, we have scored 60, and we have chased down 200, too. Saim [Ayub], however, is a different player. He can have an impact and he is the sort of player who can score 80 runs in five overs. We can make mistakes. It's not like we will make 50-60 plus in all games. If we lose two wickets, then we also have to play sensibly.
Next time, we will try to improve. We are working on our batting to get better in the powerplay. We are doing power-hitting practice as well, both against spinners and fast bowlers.
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