Salman Butt identifies two reasons behind Babar Azam's recent struggle
Babar has failed to score a fifty in last 15 innings
Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt has revealed the reason behind why the star batter Babar Azam is under scrutiny nowadays.
Speaking to a local sports channel, the 39-year-old gave two reasons for the criticism.
Being the star batter of the past decade, Butt believes that the captain of national team is unable to give his best due to the team’s over-dependency on him.
“There are two reasons (why Babar is facing so much heat). No doubt, he is currently Pakistan's best batter and, I think, the most consistent player of the decade. But the problem is that when a player struggled earlier, they were more out of form than Babar," Butt said.
“There were 4-5 other players who used to win matches, so everyone's respect used to be saved and it was covered. Now the problem is that Babar has scored so much, then he is the only one who scores most of the runs for Pakistan. There is no one with him who can match him,” he said.
The left-handed batter added that the other major reason is the flaws in player development.
He stressed that the entire batting line is more towards power-hitting and aggressive shots rather than scoring handsome amount of runs, impacting the chances for winning.
“Now, when he is not scoring, it feels like Babar is not doing anything. Babar has made people habituated by scoring so many runs that people now want him to score lots of runs in every inning. Now there is no other match-winning player with him in the Pakistan team.”
Butt, 39, added a period to the conversation after highlighting the importance of 29-year-old in every single match.
“You can see, the day he doesn't run, you know that the Pakistan team will not win the match. So, this is the problem of Pakistan that you did not develop the players. You tried to develop everyone on the basis of power-hitting, the basis of playing openly. And now you don't have players with the right techniques,” he concluded.
In the ongoing Test series against Bangladesh, Babar has struggled, scoring 22 runs in the first Test while 31 in the second innings so far.
The ongoing struggle has mounted pressure on the white-ball skipper.
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