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Ahead of Australia tour, ‘Akela’ Babar Azam faces criticism after KK’s defeats in PSL 7

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Babar Azam Karachi Kings Australia tour PSL 7

The skipper of the Pakistan cricket team in all formats, Babar Azam has become the centre of criticism following the consecutive defeats of Karachi Kings in Pakistan Super League (PSL) 7 despite maintaining his individual performance.

Some analysts have defined it as an alarming sign of low morale for Babar Azam himself following the back-to-back losses of Karachi Kings under his captaincy. However, the majority of them have ruled out the possibilities of an impact on the upcoming mega cricket events, especially the Australia tour to Pakistan.

On the PSL point table, Karachi Kings have failed to earn a single victory in the six matches which almost ended their chances to make advancement to the next level of the tournament.

When it comes to individual performance, Babar Azam scored 253 runs in the six matches of PSL 2022 so far and held the fourth position among the batters after maintaining the strike rate of 120.47% and highest individual score of 90 runs.

The top three batsmen include Fakhar Zaman with 469 runs at 165.14% strike rate, Shan Masood 351 runs at 147.47% SR and Mohammad Rizwan’s 269 runs at 124.53% SR.

However, the slow pace of scoring runs of Babar Azam in the short format match brought criticism to his individual performance and his captaincy.

Arfa Feroz Zake posted a Twitter thread on the situation, saying, “Akela Babar Azam kya kya karay? [How Babar Azam can handle a lot of things alone?] He added, “Babar Azam is doing his best in his domain but management of Karachi Kings completely failed to meet the standards of Babar Azam!”

He continued, “KK wants Babar Azam to bat as an opener! KK wants Babar Azam to build inngings! KK wants Babar Azam to play match winning knocks with quick strike rate! KK wants Babar Azam to win PSL for them! However what is the performance of other ten players and management of Karachi Kings so far?”

He then wrote, “Karachi Kings are famous for wasting players and then surprisingly release them whereas those released players later join new franchise and have proved exceptionally well in PSL! Lets hope Karachi Kings release Babar Azam now as this is not what Babar Azam deserves in PSL!”

“On a lighter note. Karachi Kings early departure from the tournament will be good omen for Babar Azam as the captain can join test camp of Pakistan early, relax himself and get enough time to prepare for Australia tour to Pakistan! PSL days were just frustrating for Bobby!”

The journalist criticised, “Karachi is a city of 2cr but Karachi Kings failed to do justice with cricket fans! There’s something seriously wrong in KK management! Poor draft homework followed by zero energy in dugout as well as team! Karachi Kings failed to build combination despite halfway tournament!”

A sports journalist, Qadir Khawaja said that Babar Azam is still a world-class player.

Imran Siddique said, “Expect a lot better from a number 1 batsman. Concern for Pakistan too specially when you have T20 world cup this year.”

He then tweeted, “Criticizing Babar and hating him are Two different things. Stop this hatred guys.”

Mazhar Arshad wrote, “Babar Azam has batted 200 balls in this PSL and hit just one six. He has been very defensive in the tournament mainly because the other batters are not doing enough.”

He then criticised, “You have two resources to score runs – Wickets (10) and Balls (120). A batter who scores a duck only fails to contribute. A batter who scores 50 off 40 fails to contribute enough plus also KILLS the resources. So, on a 200 runs pitch, a 50 can hurt more than a 0. 0 (1) is better than 50 (40) in most of the T20s.”

Although, it was established that the wrong player drafting was a major reason for the Karachi Kings’ defeat which was resulted in soaring crises following the injuries of some players but Babar Azam is still being questioned for the back-to-back defeats.

Earlier, the owner of Karachi Kings and CEO of ARY Digital Network Salman Iqbal had apologised to Karachiites for poor performance as the Babar Azam-eleven was outclassed by other teams in Pakistan Super League (PSL).

Salman Iqbal had said on Twitter, “I’m sorry Karachi! We tried to put together the best team but things just haven’t gone our way. We have been outclassed by other teams. We had all these injuries and covid!”

He added, “I love this team as much as all the fans of #karachi. We will try and fix it! Shall come back inshallah!”

REASONS OF KK’S DEFEATS

Karachi Kings, the strong franchise of Pakistan Super League (PSL) 7, failed to meet the expectations of its fans despite being captained by the world’s top batsman Babar Azam as it faced back-to-back defeats in the mega cricketing event.

The chances of Karachi Kings have dimmed to advance to the next level after the hapless performance in the ongoing PSL 7 following the consecutive defeats since the beginning of the tournament.

In an analytical view, it is obvious that the Kings are facing trouble to make a good combination in batting and bowling sides, especially in the absence of Mohammad Amir and Chris Jordan. Jordan has just joined KK.

Players drafting

In the draft picks, the Kings have had Chris Jordan, Lewis Gregory, Umaid Asif, Tom Abell, Rohail Nazir, Mohammad Imran (wildcard: from Emerging to Silver), Qasim Akram (Right to Match), Faisal Akram, Talha Ahsan and Romario Shepherd.

The retained players included Babar Azam, Imad Wasim (both Platinum), Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Nabi (both Diamond), Joe Clarke (Gold; Brand Ambassador), Aamer Yamin, Sharjeel Khan (both Gold) and Mohammad Ilyas (Silver)

According to the potential first XI, the players included Babar Azam, Sharjeel Khan, Joe Clarke, Imad Wasim, Lewis Gregory, Mohammad Nabi, Aamir Yamin, Chris Jordan, Umaid Asif, Mohammad Amir and Talha Ahsan.

Later, some changes were made as injured Tom Abell was replaced by Ian Cockbain, Romario Shepherd was replaced by Tom Lammonby due to the first’s unavailability, whereas, Chris Jordan remained absent in the matches due to being a part of the English squad touring West Indies. Sahibzada Farhan and Jordan Thompson came in for the supplementary round and Mohammad Taha Khan as a partial replacement.

However, the wrong drafting of the players, neglecting the creation of a proper combination forced Kings to suffer defeats.

Amir’s absence

Karachi Kings have felt the absence of Mohammad Amir who is one of the top wicket-takers of PSL due to an injury. It was an unfortunate happening for the Kings to witness the star bowler’s unavailability after he suffered injury hours before the opening match of PSL.

Babar Azam: captain or batsman

There is no doubt over the brilliant captaincy of Babar Azam which led Pakistan first win against India in a world cup event but an individual’s performance is obviously not enough for bagging the victories, especially without proper combinations in batting and bowling fields.

However, the lack of batting combination and low scoring in the powerplay by Babar Azam that gave a direct impact on the middle-order batters, leaving them under pressure and resulting in their early collapse.

Azam is probably facing a lot of pressure on him after knowing the state of Kings’ weak middle-order batters which pushed him to stay on the crease for a longer inning besides stopping him to play fearlessly during the powerplays.

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