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Babar Azam - T20I Captaincy Watch

His lack of presence on the field is concerning. He seriously lacks star power.
 
Speaks volumes about the quality of our players. Apparently he is the greatest we've produced in years.

The reality is that our so-called elite players are just good by international standards. I wonder how our fans would react if we actually produce a Kohli, Steve Smith or Rohit type player. They would go nuts.
 
His lack of presence on the field is concerning. He seriously lacks star power.

Looks a tiny presence on the field. Doesn't go up to his bowlers to talk. No shouting instructions. Infact I've seen Sarfraz shouting more instructions the times he's played under him. Remember Haris Rauf shouting at him, I don't even know if players respect his ability to lead honestly.
Not to mention the guy's match awareness and tactics are school level shocking
 
His presence on the field and all-round body language is very meek and sheepish.

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Seems to be maturing well as a captain till now.

Changed end for Usman Qadir and he picked up 3 wickets today after that and used 6th option of Hafeez well considering the wicket and lefties in the opposition.
 
Nothing wrong with his body language on the field. The team has immense respect for him which shows in the way they talk about him.

His tactics are getting better. Just needs to get his playing XI right, and also keep delivering with that bat.
 
Seems to be maturing well as a captain till now.

Changed end for Usman Qadir and he picked up 3 wickets today after that and used 6th option of Hafeez well considering the wicket and lefties in the opposition.

Yup. Since he didn't had experience of captaincy, not he captains in the PSL, he has to and is learning a lot now.
 
Babar being praised for his use of bowlers today and also persisting with Danish Aziz.
 
Below Avg captain, the praise was too early because you can see how see we batted and hoew taylor captained..

He has no aura of confidence and doesnt look like he could ever dominate a series.

Lots of WC losses coming in the future...
 
Man he lost to zimbabwe today, what a shame

You cant seriously blame Babar’s captaincy when Pak restricted Zim for 119 and batsmen couldnt get it. Yes you can argue about selections, batting order etc but there is whole team management involved in such decisions.
 
You cant seriously blame Babar’s captaincy when Pak restricted Zim for 119 and batsmen couldnt get it. Yes you can argue about selections, batting order etc but there is whole team management involved in such decisions.

Babar is the captain, and he will be responsible for the team loss and win.

I agree, the team selection by M.waseem was a joke with haider Ali, Danish and Asif Ali.
 
Spineless captaincy. Take charge of who plays and who doesn't. Who gets picked in the squad for the tours. Not Mohammad Wasim and not Misbah ul haq. Babar needs to step up. Unfortunately he didn't have the greatest of predecessors but this is ridiculous.
 
His on field captaincy was fine again, it was just the batting collectively who were responsible for the loss.
 
Poor captaincy cost us the match

The main factor that cost us this match was poor captaincy!
It was a slow n low wicket and hence the ball was not comming on to the bat from ball one. with the size of the ground, hitting boundaries was always going to be a difficult task and that's exactly wt it turned out to be. So singles and doubles would be the difference between victory and defeat.

This is where babar lost us the match as he had failed to read the conditions and had hence set a regular field while wt needed to be done was to keep the field up and restrict the opposition from taking easy singles and doubles, which babar failed to do.

On the other hand zim kept the field up throughout and restricted us from taking any singles and forced us to go over the top.

Babar seems to comming from the line of defensive captains, which Pak has had plenty off who fail at the the first sign of anything out of the box/script that they have been given
 
The main factor that cost us this match was poor captaincy!
It was a slow n low wicket and hence the ball was not comming on to the bat from ball one. with the size of the ground, hitting boundaries was always going to be a difficult task and that's exactly wt it turned out to be. So singles and doubles would be the difference between victory and defeat.

This is where babar lost us the match as he had failed to read the conditions and had hence set a regular field while wt needed to be done was to keep the field up and restrict the opposition from taking easy singles and doubles, which babar failed to do.

On the other hand zim kept the field up throughout and restricted us from taking any singles and forced us to go over the top.

Babar seems to comming from the line of defensive captains, which Pak has had plenty off who fail at the the first sign of anything out of the box/script that they have been given

Babar is only a figurehead captain. He does not posses any leadership skills and hasn't done anything which would tell us that he reads the game very well.

Pakistan, unfortunately, does not have any other option and that is why had to appoint the best player as captain i.e. Babar.

Maybe in the future, Rizwan can take the reigns and Babar can be left to concentrate on his batting.
 
Spineless captaincy. Take charge of who plays and who doesn't. Who gets picked in the squad for the tours. Not Mohammad Wasim and not Misbah ul haq. Babar needs to step up. Unfortunately he didn't have the greatest of predecessors but this is ridiculous.

Babar can wield so much power atm that it is ridiculous. He can literally dictate who plays and who doesn't, and no one can oppose... but that requires some spine which he doesn't have.
 
Babar showed some naivety today - he bowled Danish Aziz in the 17th over probably wanting Zimbabwe to score a few extra runs so the batsmen could spend longer in the middle.

The problem was batting second was always going to be difficult given the pitch was so slow that hardly anyone, including himself, could time the ball and accelerate.

Regis Chakabva and Musakanda took 17 off that over, and Pakistan lost by 19 runs. Lesson - never take your foot off the gas in international cricket.
 
Sangakkara on commentary saying that he needs to be talking to the bowlers a lot more and be more proactive in the field with his field placings and communication.
 
I think Babar will slowly get more confident and grow into the role. But prehaps today he could have utlislied some of the part timers like Hafeez or Fakhar
 
Many issues. Opting to field first was misplaced aggression - to take opposition on rather than play to your own strength.

Not giving Hafeez or Fakhar spin overs, not rotating batting order, not rotating bowling order (bring Shaheen early amid the carnage), defensive field placements and many other issues.

Misbah and Babar do not make a good LOI combination against good opposition.

Knowing them, they will like to play the same team in the 3rd LOI in the name of 'giving full chances' as opposed to using a team that will win on the day.

Schoolboy cricket.
 
Many issues. Opting to field first was misplaced aggression - to take opposition on rather than play to your own strength.

Not giving Hafeez or Fakhar spin overs, not rotating batting order, not rotating bowling order (bring Shaheen early amid the carnage), defensive field placements and many other issues.

Misbah and Babar do not make a good LOI combination against good opposition.

Knowing them, they will like to play the same team in the 3rd LOI in the name of 'giving full chances' as opposed to using a team that will win on the day.

Schoolboy cricket.

Hassan will play the third t20 that's definitely
 
Really good captaincy.

Impressed with Babar and he will only get better.

Are you serious? Didnt like Babar’s captaincy at all today - why have Hasnain in the team when you were not gonna give him the ball? Plus the field placements were pretty ordinary too -i still cannot get around why there were no slip to spinners.

Yeah it was a close game but that was more because of the stupidity of the English (especially David Malan), but that was inspite of Babar’s orfinary captaincy not because of him.
 
Are you serious? Didnt like Babar’s captaincy at all today - why have Hasnain in the team when you were not gonna give him the ball? Plus the field placements were pretty ordinary too -i still cannot get around why there were no slip to spinners.

Yeah it was a close game but that was more because of the stupidity of the English (especially David Malan), but that was inspite of Babar’s orfinary captaincy not because of him.

The call to drop a batsman was more of the management.

No, Babar's captaincy strangled the English batsmen and led them to lose their wickets, plus his bowling changes were excellent.

Not having a slip was negative, but he'll definitely learn and there are far more positives than negatives.
 
The call to drop a batsman was more of the management.

No, Babar's captaincy strangled the English batsmen and led them to lose their wickets, plus his bowling changes were excellent.

Not having a slip was negative, but he'll definitely learn and there are far more positives than negatives.

Why is dropping a batsmen management call? Babar himself has said that he doesnt want to be anybody’s dummy, which means he has to be the one driving the playing 11? Why are we conveniently putting the blame only on Misbah when he is equally involved in the selection of the playing 11?
 
Are you serious? Didnt like Babar’s captaincy at all today - why have Hasnain in the team when you were not gonna give him the ball? Plus the field placements were pretty ordinary too -i still cannot get around why there were no slip to spinners.

Yeah it was a close game but that was more because of the stupidity of the English (especially David Malan), but that was inspite of Babar’s orfinary captaincy not because of him.

Husnain wasn't needed Morgan even stated he didn't expect it to take that much spin.thier was a slip to qadir.
 
Why is dropping a batsmen management call? Babar himself has said that he doesnt want to be anybody’s dummy, which means he has to be the one driving the playing 11? Why are we conveniently putting the blame only on Misbah when he is equally involved in the selection of the playing 11?

It was the right move to drop azam khan
 
Did well today. Making match out of 155 on any surface against the powerhouse which England is, not any easy task.

Needs to be consistent and keep on growing in the role.
 
i think we shoould have bolwed with spinners all the way...starting with imad...qadir...then shadab and hafeez....i have heard soahib can bowl sin as well ..
 
Did well today. Making match out of 155 on any surface against the powerhouse which England is, not any easy task.

Needs to be consistent and keep on growing in the role.

Not on this wicket which was spinning. Usman Qadir got taken to the cleaners by Roy which was criminal on this wicket
 
Not on this wicket which was spinning. Usman Qadir got taken to the cleaners by Roy which was criminal on this wicket

Agreed but, thats down to Qadir as on this wicket Babar had to bowl his specialist leggy. Babar had 4 spin bowling options in total and I think he utilized them pretty well.
 
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He's still captaining well in bursts and I guess that's a part of learning on the job.

Not using Hasnain was smart, but switching back to Hasan Ali at the end showed he didn't have a good feel for what was happening in front of him.

The English batsmen were in a lot of doubt against the spinners before Hasan Ali gave the momentum back. I think another over of spin might have led to another wicket or two because they were getting frustrated.
 
I would have given shadab an over at the end instead of Hassan Ali and I would have gone with shaheen in the last over.
 
Babar must not take his foot off the accelerator here - needs to think on his feet.
 
Man Babar is such a bad captain, FAST BOWLERS are taking wickets. Pant struggles against fast bowlers and he is bowling spinners. Why wasn't Hassan given one or two more overs to bowl at Pant. It's so bad honestly.
 
I thought he got it wrong today with Hassan Ali.

He was struggling and instead of bowling him for his 4 overs he should have given Hafeez or Imad another over earlier.
 
babar cant win the world t20 if he doesnt trust the likes of Imad waseem and Hafeez. If you keeping Imad for two overs that might aswell play an extra bowler and get hafeez to bowl 4
 
Soooo

Babar Azam becomes the first ever Pakistani captain to beat India in any ICC world cup match.

Congrats Babar......
 
Probably his finest hour as skipper in the T20 format.

Everything, well almost everything he touched turned to gold.
 
Babar azam, a terrible defensive captain

When u bring ur fine leg n third man in the circle u are basically setting field for poor bowling in addition to the fact fact ur signaling to the opposition than ur pissing in ur pants.
As ur asking ur bowler not to bowler Yorkers as now if u bowl Yorkers even the slightest edge or a any sort of lap short will go to the boundary.
N your doing this to bowlers who's main weapon is to bowl Yorkers.
The two ws in their prime use to have fine leg third man on the boundary, both fine plus a square leg.
Than bowl bouncers to peg the batsmen back n than bowl Yorkers.
9/10 times it use to work perfectly.
Look how wonderfully Harris rauf was used by the Melbourne stars in the big bash.

The most timmied of the captains do well when the going is good, but only the good captains stand out when going gets tough.

N babar failed today like most days to utilize is fast men properly.
 
1000 runs as captain

During his 51 off 47 balls match-winning effort against Afghanistan in Dubai, Pakistan star batter Babar Azam also completed 1000 runs as captain in T20 Internationals. He required only 26 innings to achieve the landmark, the least by any captain in the world. India legend Virat Kohli held the previous record – 1000 runs in 30 innings. Babar, who first led Pakistan against Australia in Sydney in 2019, is the ninth captain and the first from Pakistan to accumulate 1000 runs while leading the team.
 
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but that 2nd over from Imad when Warner was there and also giving Hassan Ali 4 overs when he was clearly struggling. Perhaps a couple of errors.
 
Every single Pakistani could see that Hassan Ali was struggling and shouldn’t have been given 4 overs. The only person that couldn’t see it was the captain. He was blinded by his friendship with Hassan Ali.

He had Mohammad Wasim sitting on the bench for 2 dead rubbers.

He didn’t bowl out Imad.

Got Malik and Hafeez to come in ahead of Hassan Ali in the last 2 overs.

Terrible captaincy.

Throws his players under the bus. Doesn’t talk about his own tuk tuk innings.
 
Babar Ignorance or over confidence cost the game against Australia

Not sure if anyone has seen it but Rizwan was keep telling Babar to take deep fine leg of Shaheen's bowling against Wade but Babar ignored him altogether...
 
Babar Azam's tactical decisions in semi final

Babar is a brilliant batter and he has already established a name for himself in world cricket, but I don't think that he is tactically a good captain. This semi final was a captaincy test for Babar. He was in pressure the first time in an ICC tournament and he made some poor decisions. Some of them are stated below:

1- On a batting wicket, you cannot accumulate your way to 39 off 34. If you have taken this many balls then you have to go deep and give some acceleration momentum to the team, which Rizwan did at the end of his innings. In the post-match, Babar said that he was happy with the score, but the score was at-least 20 runs short on this batting wicket. The Aussies were able to chase this score without any contribution from Finch or Maxwell, which says a lot that the score was below par on this wicket. So, Babar could not read this pitch correctly.

2- After getting out, Babar sent Fakhar when there were at least 2 to 3 overs of spin remaining and Fakhar is a slow starter against spin. He should have sent Malik there keeping in mind that Malik feasts on spin and when gets set, he can hit pacers too.

3- Babar sent Malik over Hafeez in the depth overs when Australian pacers were bowling at 140+ kph and every child in this country knows that Malik is not a good starter against pace.

4- After 7 or 8 overs, Babar knew that the wicket is flat and will get flatter in the 2nd innings. Being a captain, he should have given the message to whole team to go for kill and score at-least 10 per over which is not very difficult in today's cricket. But again, he could not read the pitch correctly.

5- There was a lot of discussion of match ups in this tournament and being a captain, Babar should know about this match ups and which bowler can be better utilized against which batter. Imad was a match up for Finch and always going to be costly against Warner. Finch was out in 1st over. He should have used Hafeez from the other end to attack Warner. Hafeez has a lot of experience with the new ball and has performed this role successfully in past.

6- Australia's pacers are lot more experienced than Pakistan's. But Babar did not learn it from the first innings that the pacers were going for runs on this flat wicket, and if he had any chance to dry out the runs, it was through the spinners. Knowing Hasan's form and learning from first innings and Australia's weakness against spin, Babar should have even give the ball to Malik.

7- Knowing Hasan's form, Babar should not have played Hasan in this match. But even if he played him, he should have known that he is the weak link and he should have tried to hide that weak link. Instead he gave the the full quota of overs and 2 of them were in depth.

8- In post-match, Babar did no admit once that he made some mistakes (like Hasan's selection or incorrect reading of pitch), but he threw Hasan under the bus straight away by blaming that catch.

9- He gets too emotional and animated some times (a bit like Sarfaraz), and he has a lot of belief in Hafeez and Malik. If Babar remains captain, we will probably see both Hafeez and Malik in next year T20 world cup too, which is in Australia.

Babar is an exceptional talent, but it's no shame in identifying that someone is not good tactically. Tendulkar and Kohli are great examples of this. Babar has not won anything of note since his U19 days as captain. So I believe that PCB should look into it and do something about it.
 
His captaincy looked pretty Effy today. Probably the pressure of expectations because Pakistan had done well till now.

However, Babar also has to go a long way to become an all time great batsman too. We all know that it is a matter of time before Babar gets to the 45-49 range of test averaging batsman. In LOIs, he will accumulate lot of runs and play good knocks time and again.

But to become an all-time great and Pakistan's greatest batsman, he will have to hit 25+ hundreds and average 50+ in Test cricket.

At the moment, he seems to be having a ceiling of Jayawardene, Amla and Clarke level instead of Kohli, Sangakkara or de Villiers level.
 
Excellent post and I've been thinking about all these tactical errors since the last night's defeat. Another point I would like to add that Shaheen was swinging the ball brilliantly in the first 2 overs and It could've been a chance to give 1 over to Hassan (instead of Imad vs. Warner) to see if he can also extract any swing or seam movement. Hassan in middle overs was always going to be a costly option but unfortunately our captain and management weren't prepared well enough for this situation.
 
Babar is a brilliant batter and he has already established a name for himself in world cricket, but I don't think that he is tactically a good captain. This semi final was a captaincy test for Babar. He was in pressure the first time in an ICC tournament and he made some poor decisions. Some of them are stated below:

1- On a batting wicket, you cannot accumulate your way to 39 off 34. If you have taken this many balls then you have to go deep and give some acceleration momentum to the team, which Rizwan did at the end of his innings. In the post-match, Babar said that he was happy with the score, but the score was at-least 20 runs short on this batting wicket. The Aussies were able to chase this score without any contribution from Finch or Maxwell, which says a lot that the score was below par on this wicket. So, Babar could not read this pitch correctly.

2- After getting out, Babar sent Fakhar when there were at least 2 to 3 overs of spin remaining and Fakhar is a slow starter against spin. He should have sent Malik there keeping in mind that Malik feasts on spin and when gets set, he can hit pacers too.

3- Babar sent Malik over Hafeez in the depth overs when Australian pacers were bowling at 140+ kph and every child in this country knows that Malik is not a good starter against pace.

4- After 7 or 8 overs, Babar knew that the wicket is flat and will get flatter in the 2nd innings. Being a captain, he should have given the message to whole team to go for kill and score at-least 10 per over which is not very difficult in today's cricket. But again, he could not read the pitch correctly.

5- There was a lot of discussion of match ups in this tournament and being a captain, Babar should know about this match ups and which bowler can be better utilized against which batter. Imad was a match up for Finch and always going to be costly against Warner. Finch was out in 1st over. He should have used Hafeez from the other end to attack Warner. Hafeez has a lot of experience with the new ball and has performed this role successfully in past.

6- Australia's pacers are lot more experienced than Pakistan's. But Babar did not learn it from the first innings that the pacers were going for runs on this flat wicket, and if he had any chance to dry out the runs, it was through the spinners. Knowing Hasan's form and learning from first innings and Australia's weakness against spin, Babar should have even give the ball to Malik.

7- Knowing Hasan's form, Babar should not have played Hasan in this match. But even if he played him, he should have known that he is the weak link and he should have tried to hide that weak link. Instead he gave the the full quota of overs and 2 of them were in depth.

8- In post-match, Babar did no admit once that he made some mistakes (like Hasan's selection or incorrect reading of pitch), but he threw Hasan under the bus straight away by blaming that catch.

9- He gets too emotional and animated some times (a bit like Sarfaraz), and he has a lot of belief in Hafeez and Malik. If Babar remains captain, we will probably see both Hafeez and Malik in next year T20 world cup too, which is in Australia.

Babar is an exceptional talent, but it's no shame in identifying that someone is not good tactically. Tendulkar and Kohli are great examples of this. Babar has not won anything of note since his U19 days as captain. So I believe that PCB should look into it and do something about it.

Go easy, he is doing great. Put the right support structure around him and and he will take the team long way. He is juggling too many things right now. He is leadership material, we should hold him as an example.

You can go back to running your billion dollar company or some mini army.
 
Got to be more flexible in team selections and accept that he'll lose some friends when he starts putting team above individuals
 
Legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar lauded current Pakistan skipper Babar Azam for showcasing immense skills not only as a batter but also as a leader of his side. Gavaskar seemed extremely impressed by the way Babar carried the weight of the captaincy along with being the backbone of the side as far as batting is concerned. Writing in Khaleej Times, Gavaskar explained in detail how Babar could become one of the all-time greats of the game. "There is no doubt that Babar, if he keeps himself fit and motivated, is going to become one of the all-time greats of the game. What he can become is also one of the greatest captains that Pakistan has produced.," wrote Gavaskar.

The Indian legend also highlighted key aspects of Babar's leadership which was one of the reasons for Pakistan's exceptional outing in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021.

"His reading of the game situation is brilliant and the changes that he has been making with the bowling and field placing have been unbelievably accurate," he added.

Gavaskar used the terms "calm" and "game aware" for the current Pakistan squad while defining their on-field success. According to the former Indian opener, Pakistan's temperament was praiseworthy throughout the tournament.

"Pakistan have always been a mercurial side with some of the most naturally talented cricketers in the game. What has pulled them back is an excitable temperament. This time with Babar Azam leading them they are a lot calmer and a lot more game aware team," Gavaskar explained.

Pakistan qualified for the semi-finals of the ongoing T20 World Cup without losing even a game in the Super 12 stage. They overpowered India by 10 wickets and followed it with a win against New Zealand by 5 wickets in their opening two games.

Listen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.com
Babar was a revelation in the tournament, scoring four T20 half-centuries till the Super 12 stage while batting at the top of the order.

However, Pakistan went down and bowed out of the tournament in the semis-final after losing to an inspired Australian side by five wickets in Dubai.

https://sports.ndtv.com/icc-t20-wor...bar-azam-can-become-an-all-time-great-2607995
 
He did make some mistakes but its a learning curve and with experience he will make less mistakes. Some of the mistakes

Not batting Asif ali,Muhammed Hafeez before Malik was a blunder.

Not bowling Shaheen for a third over.
Hafeez should have bowled another over.
Hassan should have been fielding inside the circle if he was injuired.
 
Shoaib Akhtar on Babar captaincy:

"You have to agree here that our (Pakistan) captain is young and new and in the end could not keep composed. On the other hand, Australia is a mature team and there they used their experience, culture, base to remain composed and did not get scared. Pakistan team, though, did not get scared but panicked.

"He (Babar Azam) is a new captain and I understand that but winning 5 out of 6 games, I thought this was Pakistan's World Cup to win. This could have been won. We might not get such an easy chance ever again. We tried our best but the best was not good enough for yesterday. The better team won"
 
His first major tournament as skipper and he won 5 matches out of 6 which is a good effort.

I'm sure he will take plenty of lessons forward for future tournaments.

Overall I thought he did quite well, perhaps the only criticism would be bowling a second over from Imad when Warner was at the crease and bowling Hassan Ali for a 4th over when he was clearly struggling.
 
It was his first semi final that too as a captain, cut him some slack. Majority of the cricket fraternity is praising his captaincy.
Even morgan made some mistakes so there's nothing wrong in making a few mistakes as it is a learning curve.
Again anything and everything can be said in hindsight.
 
Glad that Babar has really been growing into the role, but the DRS decision making process needs to improve. Twice got convinced into taking very bad reviews first by Shadab and then by Shaheen.

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Fakhar Zaman on BA captaincy:

"Since the time, Babar Azam has taken charge of the side, he has set standards in batting and fielding for us and we are all trying to meet those standards, and I am doing the same"

"So the presence of Babar as captain is making a big difference. As you can see, we won in South Africa as well and played really well in the UAE also, and here in Bangladesh we have done well too; So if you win away from home, that speaks a lot about you. With the help of the Team Management, we are gelling well as a team which is a great thing and I hope and pray that things will only get better for us in the future"
 
Joke of a captain.

First two overs we get attacked, and he doesnt bring spin earlier..

Than during the whole innings, we all know pacers are getting attacked due to flat wicekt and spinnner doing good here, yet he never gave an over to khushdil or ifti.

This guy is a terrible captain.
 
Horrible captain. Nawaz and Shadab caused troubles for India while pacers were getting smashed. Yet, the genius doesn’t give a single over to Ifti uncle or Khusdil.
 
Chacha Ifti and Khusdil are not good as Hafeez or even close to him where you can experiment with these guys... They can easily concede more than 20 runs in an over
 
From what we've seen uptil now, the decision to not bowl khushdil or Iftikhar has to be questioned.
 
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