Babar Azam keen to lead rebuild after Pakistan's exit from World Cup
The Green Shirts finished fifth in the points table
Pakistani skipper Babar Azam expressed his desire to lead the team's rebuild after Pakistan's exit from the ICC World Cup 2023 following a 93-run defeat against England at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, India, on Saturday.
Pakistan's World Cup campaign ended with eight points out of a possible 18 as the Men in Green emerged victorious in four games while tasting defeat in five.
Azam, who amassed 320 runs in the mega event at 40.00 average, stated that the team conceded too many runs while admitting that their spinners didn't take many wickets.
"We conceded a few too many runs. We bowled a few loose deliveries towards the end. And our spinners' aren't taking wickets, which doesn't help. That has a big effect because you need to take wickets in the middle overs," Babar said in a post-match ceremony.
He then added that there [in India] is not much room for error for pacers because of batting conditions. He ended his short speech by saying that he was eager to lead the rebuild.
"The pitch is very true and the margin of error is very low for fast bowlers, which explains the big scores we have conceded. We will sit together and take stock. We'll take positives from this and discuss mistakes. I'm keen to lead the rebuild," Azam added.
It is worth mentioning that despite a great start in their mega event campaign where Babar Azam-led unit registered back-to-back wins against the Netherlands and Sri Lanka, they went on to a four-match losing streak — the first time in their World Cup history — and became dependent on results of other teams to qualify for the semi-finals.
Even though Pakistan beat Bangladesh and New Zealand to stay alive for the semi-final race but the Black Caps' convincing win over Sri Lanka ended their hopes of qualifying for the knockout stage nearly impossible.
Pakistan have now failed to qualify for the World Cup semi-final for the fifth time this century as their last appearance was in the 2011 World Cup semi-final against India, which they lost.
