- Joined
- Oct 2, 2004
- Runs
- 216,706
Kolkata - Pakistan Captain Babar Azam pre-match press conference
[Reporter:]
Do you think the campaign is over or will we go after this big target? And when you look back, what is the defeat that has influenced the Pakistan campaign?
[Babar Azam:]
I think there is one match left. You never know. Its cricket - we will try to finish on a good note and then see.
I think the South African match cost us and we should have won that match, but unfortunately, we didn't win that because of which we are at this stage.
[Reporter:]
It's a difficult situation, but it’s said that we should have hope. How hopeful are you? What mistakes have you made in this tournament? Is it the ball or the fielding?
[Babar Azam:]
Look, there should be hope at all times. At any stage, at any work you do, you should have positive hope and I firmly believe in that.
You cannot say that it is the fault of bowling, fielding, or batting. As a team we could not execute. We cannot say that we got so many runs in bowling or lost runs in fielding. As a team we did not execute the plan or play as per the demand – that includes bowling, batting, and fielding.
We will try to learn from this, because the faster you learn from big events you know where you have made mistakes. I have seen that the margin of error is very low here. Because when you give even a little room to any team, they take the match from you. This is the specialty of World Cup. It's a high-intensity game. You have a match against every team, so they are high-intensity games. So, I think the whole team should learn from the mistakes.
[Reporter:]
Four years ago, the situation was similar to this. You needed 300+ against Bangladesh and today you need around 288. I get the impression from your talks that you haven't thought about the 200 margin or about the net run rate - that we might go for an all-out aggression. What will be Pakistan's strategy tomorrow? Do you think that you will play on ‘do or die’ strategy and try to post the first batting scoreboard that we can achieve it?
[Babar Azam:]
No, it’s not like that that this matter is not in the back of the mind. It's in our mind and we will try to do it. We will try to execute our plans and how we will go tomorrow and how we will achieve the target.
We can't just go in and start firing blindly – we want that but with proper planning, how we want to play the first 10 overs, then the next 20 – how we have to achieve that target.
There are a lot of things in this, like partnership, which player will stay in the pitch for how long. If you ask me, I would say if Fakhar is in the match for 20 or 30 overs, we can achieve that. Then follow up with Rizwan, Iftikhar. We can do this and we have planned for this.
[Reporter:]
The World Cup is still a match away. But, with regards to your captaincy, can't a cricketer like you play the role that Virat Kohli is playing in the Indian team? To prolong your career and focus more on cricket? Because sometimes it feels like this burden hurts your individual performance?
[Babar Azam:]
I have been captaining my team for the last three years and I have never felt this way.
It’s just because I have not performed the way I should have in the World Cup, that’s why people are saying that I am under pressure. I am under no pressure. I have been doing this for the last 2.5 or 3 years. I was the one who was performing and I was the one who was the captain. I was applying the same thing.
It depends how you take such thing. Everyone has their own point of view, their own way of thinking. Everyone is saying something different. He should be like this, or like that. If someone has to give me advice, everyone has my number. It is easy to give advice on TV. If you want to give me some advice, you can message me.
I don't think I was under any pressure or felt any different because of this. I try to give my best in the field during the fielding. During batting, I think about how I should make runs and make the team win.
[Reporter:]
The way the team has been performing, some decisions were being made in Lahore as well. Do you understand that some decisions were being made which affected the team's performance. And regarding the captaincy, will you make a decision regarding your captaincy or will the Pakistan cricket board have to make a decision?
[Babar Azam:]
I have no idea what decisions you are talking about. The decisions we make here, regarding selections of players - are the decision of the coaches and the captain. We go with the best combination of conditions and situations. Sometimes we have succeeded and sometimes we haven't.
About the captaincy – as I said, once we go back to Pakistan or after this match, we will see what happens. But right now, I am not focusing on this, my focus is on the next match.
[Reporter:]
From, let's say, 99 to now it's a long time, but there's been a slump in performance of Pakistan in World Cup. Now, does it point to a deeper problem in the country's cricket, or is it just some reason or the other you're not being able to do well in a major tournament. Because this has now continued for a long time. And for a team of Pakistan's ability, that does seem like a little bit of odd thing. Why do you think that's happening?
[Babar Azam:]
Do you think we have lost all World Cups since 1999? If you look in the T20 World Cup, we are playing in the Asia Cup [2022 final], we played in the semifinal, we played in the final in Australia [T20 World Cup 2022]. It not that we are not playing well in the World Cups, we are not able to finish well, we are executing, we are dominating. We have played good cricket and we have played positive cricket against different teams. But that doesn't mean that we haven't played good cricket since then. It's not like that.
Because we haven’t done well in this World Cup or the last World Cup, you can't say that we haven’t done well since 99, we have dominated and we were number one in one day. Yes, we are not able to finish well. We will work on that and finish well.
[Reporter:]
One thing from the Indian fans' perspective is - if they wanted any particular batsman of Pakistan to shine, it was you. Now, you haven't done badly, I mean, there's a 40-plus average and 282 runs. Personally, at a personal level, what would be an ideal situation for you, in terms of run getting or scoring as per the situation in finishing matches.
[Babar Azam:]
To be honest – first I got a lot of love from India, a lot of support. Not only me, the entire team. Of course, I was not able to get a good finish. My goal was to get a good finish in the batting. I didn't have a goal to score 50 or 100. The main thing was to make the win the team. The performance that helps the team, not my individual performance. I played slow, I played fast, depending on the situation. I play according to the situation and according to what my team need.
What is my plan? What is the team requiring from me? What am I requiring from the team? And we execute the plan accordingly. Sometimes you play slow and sometimes you play fast. Sometimes the conditions don't favour you to play fluently.
Sometimes you have to try and hang-in, fight it out and take the game deep. There are three phases here. You get runs with the new ball. When you come in the middle, you have to struggle a little. But it is not that you get these same things in every venue.
You get different situations in different venues.
We came here for the first time, we didn't have the awareness of how to take it, but we adapted as soon as possible in practice, that we will have to face it like this. So, we faced this thing, we took it and planned accordingly that how do we bat here.
Because as I said, in the middle and end you get runs. In the middle overs when the ball is old you struggle a bit – as a batsman.
That’s it, I wanted to give a good performance here, I had high expectations but I couldn’t perform as per expectations. I accept that.
But the finish, as you said, I try to have a good finish.
[Reporter:]
Do you think the campaign is over or will we go after this big target? And when you look back, what is the defeat that has influenced the Pakistan campaign?
[Babar Azam:]
I think there is one match left. You never know. Its cricket - we will try to finish on a good note and then see.
I think the South African match cost us and we should have won that match, but unfortunately, we didn't win that because of which we are at this stage.
[Reporter:]
It's a difficult situation, but it’s said that we should have hope. How hopeful are you? What mistakes have you made in this tournament? Is it the ball or the fielding?
[Babar Azam:]
Look, there should be hope at all times. At any stage, at any work you do, you should have positive hope and I firmly believe in that.
You cannot say that it is the fault of bowling, fielding, or batting. As a team we could not execute. We cannot say that we got so many runs in bowling or lost runs in fielding. As a team we did not execute the plan or play as per the demand – that includes bowling, batting, and fielding.
We will try to learn from this, because the faster you learn from big events you know where you have made mistakes. I have seen that the margin of error is very low here. Because when you give even a little room to any team, they take the match from you. This is the specialty of World Cup. It's a high-intensity game. You have a match against every team, so they are high-intensity games. So, I think the whole team should learn from the mistakes.
[Reporter:]
Four years ago, the situation was similar to this. You needed 300+ against Bangladesh and today you need around 288. I get the impression from your talks that you haven't thought about the 200 margin or about the net run rate - that we might go for an all-out aggression. What will be Pakistan's strategy tomorrow? Do you think that you will play on ‘do or die’ strategy and try to post the first batting scoreboard that we can achieve it?
[Babar Azam:]
No, it’s not like that that this matter is not in the back of the mind. It's in our mind and we will try to do it. We will try to execute our plans and how we will go tomorrow and how we will achieve the target.
We can't just go in and start firing blindly – we want that but with proper planning, how we want to play the first 10 overs, then the next 20 – how we have to achieve that target.
There are a lot of things in this, like partnership, which player will stay in the pitch for how long. If you ask me, I would say if Fakhar is in the match for 20 or 30 overs, we can achieve that. Then follow up with Rizwan, Iftikhar. We can do this and we have planned for this.
[Reporter:]
The World Cup is still a match away. But, with regards to your captaincy, can't a cricketer like you play the role that Virat Kohli is playing in the Indian team? To prolong your career and focus more on cricket? Because sometimes it feels like this burden hurts your individual performance?
[Babar Azam:]
I have been captaining my team for the last three years and I have never felt this way.
It’s just because I have not performed the way I should have in the World Cup, that’s why people are saying that I am under pressure. I am under no pressure. I have been doing this for the last 2.5 or 3 years. I was the one who was performing and I was the one who was the captain. I was applying the same thing.
It depends how you take such thing. Everyone has their own point of view, their own way of thinking. Everyone is saying something different. He should be like this, or like that. If someone has to give me advice, everyone has my number. It is easy to give advice on TV. If you want to give me some advice, you can message me.
I don't think I was under any pressure or felt any different because of this. I try to give my best in the field during the fielding. During batting, I think about how I should make runs and make the team win.
[Reporter:]
The way the team has been performing, some decisions were being made in Lahore as well. Do you understand that some decisions were being made which affected the team's performance. And regarding the captaincy, will you make a decision regarding your captaincy or will the Pakistan cricket board have to make a decision?
[Babar Azam:]
I have no idea what decisions you are talking about. The decisions we make here, regarding selections of players - are the decision of the coaches and the captain. We go with the best combination of conditions and situations. Sometimes we have succeeded and sometimes we haven't.
About the captaincy – as I said, once we go back to Pakistan or after this match, we will see what happens. But right now, I am not focusing on this, my focus is on the next match.
[Reporter:]
From, let's say, 99 to now it's a long time, but there's been a slump in performance of Pakistan in World Cup. Now, does it point to a deeper problem in the country's cricket, or is it just some reason or the other you're not being able to do well in a major tournament. Because this has now continued for a long time. And for a team of Pakistan's ability, that does seem like a little bit of odd thing. Why do you think that's happening?
[Babar Azam:]
Do you think we have lost all World Cups since 1999? If you look in the T20 World Cup, we are playing in the Asia Cup [2022 final], we played in the semifinal, we played in the final in Australia [T20 World Cup 2022]. It not that we are not playing well in the World Cups, we are not able to finish well, we are executing, we are dominating. We have played good cricket and we have played positive cricket against different teams. But that doesn't mean that we haven't played good cricket since then. It's not like that.
Because we haven’t done well in this World Cup or the last World Cup, you can't say that we haven’t done well since 99, we have dominated and we were number one in one day. Yes, we are not able to finish well. We will work on that and finish well.
[Reporter:]
One thing from the Indian fans' perspective is - if they wanted any particular batsman of Pakistan to shine, it was you. Now, you haven't done badly, I mean, there's a 40-plus average and 282 runs. Personally, at a personal level, what would be an ideal situation for you, in terms of run getting or scoring as per the situation in finishing matches.
[Babar Azam:]
To be honest – first I got a lot of love from India, a lot of support. Not only me, the entire team. Of course, I was not able to get a good finish. My goal was to get a good finish in the batting. I didn't have a goal to score 50 or 100. The main thing was to make the win the team. The performance that helps the team, not my individual performance. I played slow, I played fast, depending on the situation. I play according to the situation and according to what my team need.
What is my plan? What is the team requiring from me? What am I requiring from the team? And we execute the plan accordingly. Sometimes you play slow and sometimes you play fast. Sometimes the conditions don't favour you to play fluently.
Sometimes you have to try and hang-in, fight it out and take the game deep. There are three phases here. You get runs with the new ball. When you come in the middle, you have to struggle a little. But it is not that you get these same things in every venue.
You get different situations in different venues.
We came here for the first time, we didn't have the awareness of how to take it, but we adapted as soon as possible in practice, that we will have to face it like this. So, we faced this thing, we took it and planned accordingly that how do we bat here.
Because as I said, in the middle and end you get runs. In the middle overs when the ball is old you struggle a bit – as a batsman.
That’s it, I wanted to give a good performance here, I had high expectations but I couldn’t perform as per expectations. I accept that.
But the finish, as you said, I try to have a good finish.
Only the idiots in charge of PCB know why. So there's no question of dropping him there. He obviously still merits a place in the test side, nothing controversial about that.
