Rumours of a rift between the captain and the team are rife in the Pakistan team amid a dwindling World Cup campaign in India. The 1992 champions are on the verge of an early exit from the tournament having lost three out of their five matches as one more loss will put an end to their campaign in the ongoing tournament. Babar Azam‘s captaincy has come under the scanner as former cricketers have tore into the right-handed batter’s tactics and lack of involvement while the lack of performances has allegedly affected the team’s internal environment too.
Babar has scored a couple of half-centuries in the tournament but his leadership is in danger with reports suggesting that PCB is looking to move to split captaincy with a potential new captain in white-ball cricket after the World Cup. Amidst all this, former Pakistan pacer, who served as bowling coach for the side earlier this year in the Afghanistan T20I series, has made a sensational claim regarding Babar and his captaincy.
Speaking on ARY Sports, Gul said, “I was with the Pakistan team for one series and I saw Mohammad Rizwan and Shadab Khan getting scolded by Babar Azam for talking to the bowler. Maybe this is the reason why Rizwan and Shadab hesitate to give their inputs to the captain and bowler.”
Further, Gul criticised Babar for not learning anything over the last few years while captaining Pakistan. Gul said that Babar didn’t have an attacking mindset and when he needs to build pressure on the opposition, he isn’t doing that referring to Afghanistan’s brilliant chase against the Men in Green in Chennai as Pakistan were beaten rather comprehensively despite a good total of 282 runs on the board.
“He is leading the side for the past four years. He has led the team in almost all the big events. Not a single thing he has learnt over the period of time. When you need to apply pressure, he is not doing anything. When you need wickets, you don’t see the close-in fielders. You need to bring those strategies. We were playing against Afghanistan, he should have attacked by bringing the close-in fielders,” Gul further added.
Pakistan now have to win all their remaining games to stand a chance of qualifying for the tournament as one more loss will essentially end their challenge.