A Babar-sized problem for Pakistan
In any other T20I team, and we are talking about elite outfits here, Babar Azam wouldn’t have been allowed to feature in a squad of 15. Luckily for him, Pakistan are still stuck to their 1992 World Cup-winning white-ball template, cutting across formats. The game has moved on to the extent of a 150 strike-rate being called so-so in the shortest format. Pakistan have remained a prisoner of the past in their thought process. Also, they have stopped producing world-class batting stars. There’s no shiny new batting prodigy in the locker.
Babar is the biggest beneficiary of this, as he continues to play for Pakistan in T20Is. If cricket punditry could offer an equivalent of Alan Hansen, the catchphrase would have been – you win nothing with someone whose batting is monochromatic in the world of IMAX.
The arid numbers would confront you, flashing Babar’s 46 off 32 balls. Scratch beneath the surface, and there is a story of the first 18 deliveries when intent was conspicuous by its absence. The former captain scored just 15 runs off those 18 balls, once failing to capitalise even on a free-hit. Thankfully, from Pakistan’s perspective, Sahibzada Farhan was playing a blinder at the other end, which somewhat made up for Babar’s crawl. Against the USA, it probably didn’t matter much. Going ahead, against tougher opponents, such slow going could be damaging.
A poor over from Harmeet Singh helped Babar break the shackles. It was the 13th over of Pakistan’s innings and the left-arm spinner started off with a rank long-hop. A six ensued. Another half-tracker accounted for a four. A glorious square-drive past point for another boundary followed. Make no mistake, as far as batsmanship is concerned, Babar is unadulterated quality. But he is old-school and waits for his moments, rather than trying to make things happen. He is a misfit in the T20 format, irrespective of a strike-rate of 143 that he ended up with. It was still average for someone batting at No. 4.
While picking Babar for the T20 World Cup, Pakistan selection committee member Aaqib Javed had spoken about how the senior batsman’s presence could be crucial in challenging conditions. “Cricket has changed so much over the last few years and we need to be flexible in the way we approach and play the game,” he told reporters at the team selection press conference in Lahore. “In hard situations, it is important to have Babar Azam. The team needs to have a player that can play in all conditions.”
Aaqib’s explanation was self-contradictory. Private conversations with those who closely follow Pakistan cricket threw a bit of light on the puzzle, that the selectors were hesitant to drop a big-name player.
Babar was one of the slowest batsmen in this season’s Big Bash League, scoring 202 runs in 11 innings for Sydney Sixers at a strike-rate of 103.06. In one game, Steve Smith denied him a single to ensure that he remained on strike to take the ‘Power Surge’. Babar clearly wasn’t happy, but that was the moment when it felt like T20 cricket had probably passed him by. A Babar-sized problem might hurt Pakistan during the latter half of the ongoing World Cup.
For the record, Pakistan rode on Farhan’s 73 off 41 balls and Shadab Khan’s 30 off 12, and his two wickets, to beat USA by 32 runs. Their next match is against India on February 15.
Brief scores: Pakistan 190/9 (Sahibzada Farhan 73; Shadley van Schalkwyk 4/25) beat USA 158/8 (Shubham Ranjane 51; Usman Tariq 3/27, Shahdab Khan 2/26) by 32 runs.
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