Former Pakistan team leader and batting Coach, Younis Khan, wants a helpful way to fix the errors made by the Pakistan team in the T20 World Cup 2024. Pakistan was eliminated from the competition after losing to the USA and India in the early rounds. The team, led by Babar Azam, faced criticism from both fans and experts, who pointed out that the whole Pakistan batting group did not play well during the tournament.
Younis Khan, during an interview on PTV sports, mentioned that Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, and Shaheen Shah Afridi remain a source of national pride for Pakistan. However, he emphasized that they need to adapt to changing circumstances. Babar and Rizwan have faced a lot of criticism from Pakistani fans on social media following their team’s consecutive eliminations in the group stages of ICC tournaments. Pakistan was eliminated in the group stage of the 2023 ODI World Cup and has faced the same outcome again, even though they reached the finals of the 2022 T20 World Cup.
“We aren’t saying anything bad about anyone. We just want everyone to understand. We are really proud of Babar Azam, Shaheen, and Rizwan too. They’ve done great things in cricket. It’s not only Babar Azam’s or the coach’s mistake. It’s everyone’s mistake. It’s not that he didn’t make it to the semi-finals, it’s that we, as a country, didn’t. Everyone needs to come together and make choices. Don’t say that we don’t have white-ball cricket for the next 6 months, so we’ll decide later,” Younis Khan explained on a PTV Sports show.
The ex-captain again asked why Babar didn’t start the tournament batting at number 3. Younis mentioned that both Babar and Rizwan could bat in the middle of the lineup, and if one of them did, it might have made Pakistan a stronger team.
Younis said, “If the team needs you, you should either open or bat at number 3. There are some worries about this team’s batting, and they should have a meeting to make decisions about it.”
“We only talk about 2 batters (Babar and Rizwan), can’t they bat anywhere in the lineup? They can, right? They just need to improve a bit, change a little (to get better at hitting hard),” Younis finished talking about the issue.
Pakistan’s team leader, Babar Azam, was questioned about his role in the team. He didn’t say much about any possible consequences and mentioned that he would leave it to the PCB to decide if he should continue as the team’s captain or not.
