Srinagar: The underfire Pakistan star batter Babar Azam
has found support from former cricketer and PCB head Ramiz Raja who lashed out at critics for going against star batter.
With just 275 runs in his last seven Tests at an average of 21.15 and best of 41, Babar Azam is going through one of the leanest patches of his international career.
In the last 12 months, Babar has aggregated 1335 runs in 37 matches across formats with just one century to his name at an average of 36.08, which is muchlower than his career average of 47.73.
Last week, they suffered their first-ever Test defeat to Bangladesh, that too in home conditions. Babar scored 0 and 22 on a pitch where three batters smashed towering centuries, with two of them nearly getting double tons.
At a time when Babar Azam has been subjected to heavy trolling and criticism, former PCB chief Ramiz Raja urged him to “stay in the moment.”
“It seems the entire nation does not have a problem with anything except the form of Babar Azam. Unfortunately, what happens is when you lose a match and you have not scored runs and if you are Babar Azam, then you become a headline – How did we lose? What did he do? What was his contribution? And then this is the era of social media. Anybody can criticize and ridicule anyone, this should be discouraged as much as possible,” Ramiz said on his YouTube channel.
“Cricket is in our blood but don’t know for how long if we continue to lose matches like this in Test cricket. Fan following increases with wins and fans identify themselves with success stories. Babar Azam has had a famous success story. There is no doubt that he has been a big player in all three formats,” he said.
“So what does he have to do? First, avoid social media. Second, stay in the moment. When you are not able to score runs, it becomes a mental game and you start second-guessing. So you start worrying and that worrisome look is evident on Babar’s face. He is trying hard, so frustration will be there. What’s important is how he is batting.”
Ramiz said that in the last innings he played, he was bowled off an inside edge and it means that his “batting angles are not right”.
“You lose your frame because you aren’t spending much time on the crease. If you are playing forward, commit fully, if on the back foot, then use the crease. Practice hook and pull shots a lot, because then you focus on the ball a lot,” he concluded.