Fakhar Zaman lands in big trouble after batter compares Babar Azam's situation to that of Virat Kohli's

The opening batter of Pakistan, Fakhar Zaman, has landed himself in fresh controversy after being issued a show cause notice by the Pakistan Cricket Board after he put out a tweet regarding one of the main decisions taken by the governing body, which is being talked about ahead of Pakistan's second Test against England in Multan, scheduled to commence on October 15, 2024.

Labelling Babar Azam as Pakistan's "premier batsman", Fakhar was critical about the PCB pressing the "panic button" too fast. Further, he took ace India batter Virat Kohli's dry spell into consideration, asserting the level of confidence shown by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, implicitly throwing the PCB under the bus.   

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According to media reports that emerged shortly after, the PCB has given the left-handed batter a week to revert to their show cause notice, as per a report by The Free Press Journal. 

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This was the best time to give Babar a rest: Mahmood

Assistant coach of Pakistan, Azhar Mahmood, recently spoke on the same issue. He did laud the professional prowess of Babar but attributed Babar and the others getting dropped to the PCB prioritizing them for the upcoming away tours after the series against England. 

"Babar is our No.1 player. There is no question about that. His technique and ability. If you look at Pakistan's FTP, there's a lot of cricket coming up. So, because of that, the selection committee decided that this was the best time to give Babar a rest. After that, we have to go to Australia and Zimbabwe and there is a South Africa tour as well. So that's important," stated Mahmood, as quoted by India Today.

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Interestingly, Kohli's lean patch was far better than that of Babar's, with him scoring 588 runs in 48 innings in Tests, 2239 runs in 47 innings in ODIs, and 1375 runs in 37 innings in T20Is during 2020 and 2023.