Shoaib Akhtar and Rashid Latif slam Babar Azam for his visionless comments

Babar Azam, the newly appointed Pakistan’s ODI captain recently attended his first-ever virtual conference after getting the responsible post. But, it didn’t go down well for the youngster as he hogged the spotlight for many wrong reasons. The former cricketers like Rashid Latif and Shoaib Akhtar are not impressed for his visionless press-conference. The aforementioned duo also said that Babar needs to learn many things going into the future as a skipper.

The right-handed batsman was given a reward by the PCB for his consistent run with the bat across all the formats. He has given remarkable performances in the past on the back of his technically sound batting style. In 2019, he was appointed Pakistan’s skipper in the T20I format. Now, he was handed with another important responsibility by his cricket board.

It is a well-known fact that Babar is not very fluent in speaking English. Recently, a former Pakistan cricketer Tanvir Ahmed asked him to improve his English speaking skills. In the recent press conference, the top-order batsman replied that he is certainly working over it.

“I’m a cricketer, my job is to play cricket. I am not a ‘gora,’ who knows English completely. Yes, I am working on it, but you learn these things over a period of time, you can’t just suddenly learn it,” Babar Azam said after taking up ODI captaincy.

Shoaib Akhtar takes a dig at Babar Azam’s approach

Shoaib Akhtar said that Babar is expected to work very hard on his personality. He also added that the youngster needs to learn from Imran Khan, who led the national side with honour. As per Shoaib, there are many areas in cricket like fitness, ability to lead, communication skills etc in which the 25-year-old has to show immense improvement.

“Babar Azam wants to be a captain like Imran Khan but this does not mean that it will only be related to playing cricket. He needs to take a leaf out of PM Imran’s book with regards to personality as well. Please don’t speak about things which we already know from the past 10 years. We won’t buy this argument. Babar has to sharpen up his communication skills, his personality, ability to lead from the front, fitness level etc. I think he has a lot to prove,” Akhtar added.

Rashid Latif echoed in the same voice

Rashid Latif said that when a captain gets an opportunity to attend such press-conferences, then they usually talk about their vision but that was not the case. He added that the 25-year-old hogged the headlines about the language barriers. According to Latif, the young Pakistan skipper already showed that he is not well prepared for the designation.

“When the captain is sitting in a press conference, he gives insight about his vision but this was clearly lacking,” said Latif. “Our captain is giving headlines about the language barrier and things we already know, like comparison with Virat Kohli. Babar should have made a strong statement rather than just following the script given to him. You have already showcased that your mental attitude and approach is not up to the mark,” Latif was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.