Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman.
Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman. Image Credit: X

The former captain for the limited-overs formats, Babar Azam, and the aggressive batter of the white-ball games Fakhar Zaman were seen to be struggling against the bowling of Naseem Shah’s young batter Ubaid Shah in the nets. The former is already going through tough times having struggled as a batter and a captain in the recent months.

Babar Azam stepped down as the captain of the national side, following the team’s poor performance in last year’s ODI World Cup 2023, where they could win only four of their nine games to make the league stage exit in the tournament. His batting too didn’t contribute much, failing to contribute to the team when required.

He ended the tournament with 320 runs in nine innings, at an average of 40, with a strike rate of 82.90, besides celebrating four half-centuries, at a best score of 74 runs. Babar Azam was removed from the captaincy of T20Is, as Shaheen Shah Afridi got the new role.

Babar Azam gets hit on the body to pull Ubaid Shah in the nets

Afridi didn’t have a great beginning in his first series against New Zealand away as the board went back to Babar Azam for the leadership role of the shortest format of the game. Under his captaincy, they drew the home T20I series against a third-string Black Caps side, before losing the first of three T20Is against Ireland, and then the away T20I series against England by 2-0.

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Under him, Pakistan didn’t make a good start in the Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, having lost to the United States of America and then the arch-rivals- India in the first two games of the event. Even their couple of wins for the rest of the World Cup were not comprehensive enough.

Babar Azam ended the tournament with 122 runs in four innings, at an average of 40.66, and a strike rate of 101.66, with a best score of 44 runs, as questions were raised over his batting intent throughout the entire tournament.

His captaincy wasn’t up to the mark, as some of the decisions he took while leading the team in the field, making changes in the field positions, or using his bowlers wasn’t good at all. For two games, he didn’t even give one single over to Shadab Khan, one of the veterans of the Pakistan side.

Now, just before the start of the home summer, he decided to spend some time in the middle. The bowler he was facing was Naseem Shah’s younger brother Ubaid Shah, whose action in quite the same as his elder brother. The 18-year-old has played two List-A games where he has an economy of 10.33, without any success. The story has continued in his two T20s, with an economy rate of 10.

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Babar Azam was seen to leave the first ball, expecting it to be an outswinger, while the ball jagged back into him. Later, when he tried to pull the short ball, it rushed into him to hit on the body. The same happened with the other opening batter of the team- Fakhar Zaman who too hardly had any knowledge about the swing of the ball.

Pakistan, under the red-ball captain Shan Masood, with face the touring Bangladesh side in a two-match Test series, starting on August 21, in Rawalpindi.