- Joined
- Oct 2, 2004
- Runs
- 218,012
A well dressed Babar Azam addressing the media today, ahead of the side's departure to New Zealand

"I have always had pressure on me from the time I started playing for Pakistan, and its only after the series against the West Indies that I got a bit more confidence; You always have to face new challenges and now I have one more to face upto which is the responsibility of Test captaincy; I will try and enjoy it, and apply what I have learnt in the white-ball format to Tests as well; I learnt a lot under Sarfaraz Bhai's captaincy and he taught me a lot; Same happened with Azhar Bhai where I learnt a lot from him too; I will ask them for their advice but in the end, I will do what I understand to be right"
"I like playing under pressure as it brings a lot of enjoyment to me but give my 100 percent for the side"
"Our team is very young; All the players respect each other and are genuinely happy when the other players perform well"
"New Zealand have a good team but we are also doing well, we performed well against England recently where we lost one series and drew the other one; Batsmen did well there as did the bowlers; So we had Naseem and Shaheen who bowled very well in England and Azhar Ali who also performed wel; So the main thing in New Zealand is for us to have a good combination and to back players to give them confidence"
"Look at my example, I was struggling in Tests but I had support from the team management; Here I would like to mention Mickey Arthur who really supported me who said that more we support (Babar) and more we play him, the better he will become and so the improvement came into me after a year"
"No opponent can be taken easy but if we do a head-to-head comparison with NZ, our team is also very good; We have no pressure but we do have confidence that we will do well"
"The PCB have given me a lot of confidence and said to me to not worry about short term results, said to me that you are in our long terms plans; They have told me to play freely and there is no pressure from the PCB about results - they have given me the freedom to captain and play as well as I can"
"It can never be the case that all players will always perform well, some do well and others dont do that well; The main thing is to back players as you cannot have the case that Babar Azam will perform well everyday - some days he wont perform well! But then another day Azhar Ali will do that, or Asad Shafiq will do that, or Haris Sohail may do that; The main thing is to back someone who is not performing well; Our goal and mindset is to win everywhere we go to play"

"I have always had pressure on me from the time I started playing for Pakistan, and its only after the series against the West Indies that I got a bit more confidence; You always have to face new challenges and now I have one more to face upto which is the responsibility of Test captaincy; I will try and enjoy it, and apply what I have learnt in the white-ball format to Tests as well; I learnt a lot under Sarfaraz Bhai's captaincy and he taught me a lot; Same happened with Azhar Bhai where I learnt a lot from him too; I will ask them for their advice but in the end, I will do what I understand to be right"
"I like playing under pressure as it brings a lot of enjoyment to me but give my 100 percent for the side"
"Our team is very young; All the players respect each other and are genuinely happy when the other players perform well"
"New Zealand have a good team but we are also doing well, we performed well against England recently where we lost one series and drew the other one; Batsmen did well there as did the bowlers; So we had Naseem and Shaheen who bowled very well in England and Azhar Ali who also performed wel; So the main thing in New Zealand is for us to have a good combination and to back players to give them confidence"
"Look at my example, I was struggling in Tests but I had support from the team management; Here I would like to mention Mickey Arthur who really supported me who said that more we support (Babar) and more we play him, the better he will become and so the improvement came into me after a year"
"No opponent can be taken easy but if we do a head-to-head comparison with NZ, our team is also very good; We have no pressure but we do have confidence that we will do well"
"The PCB have given me a lot of confidence and said to me to not worry about short term results, said to me that you are in our long terms plans; They have told me to play freely and there is no pressure from the PCB about results - they have given me the freedom to captain and play as well as I can"
"It can never be the case that all players will always perform well, some do well and others dont do that well; The main thing is to back players as you cannot have the case that Babar Azam will perform well everyday - some days he wont perform well! But then another day Azhar Ali will do that, or Asad Shafiq will do that, or Haris Sohail may do that; The main thing is to back someone who is not performing well; Our goal and mindset is to win everywhere we go to play"