Babar Azam was under a lot of scrutiny for the way his innings went as Pakistan, indeed, lost by 60 runs against New Zealand, their opening Champions Trophy 2025 game. Chasing a mammoth target of 321, Pakistan had a bad start to the innings with just 22 runs in the first ten overs, losing two wickets along the way. Babar – who ultimately made 64 off 90 balls – was heavily criticized by experts and fans alike for his slow knock. The former legendary cricketer of Pakistan, Wasim Akram, put in a jibe calling Babar’s innings hilarious.
Coming on our post-match show on the channel ‘Sports Central’, Akram spoke remembering how he advised Babar to play long against all odds but to keep his strike rate high. Referring to an age-old joke, Akram was, however, quick to reply to it.
“There’s a joke, that, when a man argues with his wife, he leaves the house and hurls curses like ‘I want to die’. But God actually listened to him and took his life, the man told God, ‘I was joking. Why did you take it seriously?’,” said Akram.
“Just like this, I was also joking in my statement regarding Babar. Why did he have to take it so seriously?” he joked.
Babar’s knock was very slow under circumstances that required Pakistan batters to hit the ground running and take risks while batting. He got to his half-century from just 81 balls, with a strike rate of just 61.7.
Pakistan lost the wickets of Saud Shakeel and skipper Mohammad Rizwan before the 10th over and were at 22/2, needing nearly 300 more in just 40 overs. Babar, however could not bring up the strike rate. In fact, Babar did not hit a boundary for 16 overs, from the 16th over until the 32nd over.
No, Akram did not to keep hidden his real feelings about the performance of mature players such as Babar and Rizwan. Harshly said analytical Akram, “Look, if you want me to be really brutal honest, I can be. We are in our culture, like, ‘these are our kids, don’t criticize’. Such normal thing is here. I think these are our best players. Otherwise, they would be not selected”.
