Pakistan captain Babar Azam had another setback in the current 2023 World Cup, which garnered anger from supporters. He only scored 18 (14) in the match against Australia on Friday (October 20) at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Australia batted first in the match, amassing a massive score of 367/9 in 50 overs. David Warner (163) and Mitchell Marsh (121) both scored century to lead their teams’ batting order. Pakistan’s Shaheen Afridi took 5 wickets.
In response, Pakistan reached 134/0 in 21 overs and appeared to be in excellent shape, with to half-centuries from openers Abdullah Shafique (64) and Imam-ul-Haq (70).
Marcus Stoinis fired both of them in short succession to halt the pursuit. It was therefore up to Pakistan captain Babar Azam to bear the responsibility in a high-pressure situation against a high-quality opponent.
Babar was unable to rise to the occasion and was dismissed in the 27th over, leaving his team at 175/3. Mohammad Rizwan (46), Saud Shakeel (30), and Iftikhar Ahmed (26) then attempted to keep Pakistan in the chase, but the target proved too difficult. Pakistan was finally bowled out for 305 in 45.3 overs, losing by 62 runs.
Fans ridiculed Babar Azam on X after noticing his latest batting failure in a pressure chase.
Here are a few of the responses:
Babar Azam admits Pakistan’s poor performance in World Cup loss to Australia
Babar Azam said during the post-match presentation that Pakistan’s team did not execute to their ability against Australia.
He pointed out that blunders like dropping Australian starter David Warner’s catch proved costly for them.
Babar Azam reflected on his loss, saying:
“To be honest, we weren’t up to the mark and if you drop catch of a batter like Warner, they’ll make you pay and the margin of error on this ground is very less on a ground like this. All credit to fast bowlers and spinners, we came back well in the last 10 overs and we hit the right lengths and targeted the stumps.”
“Message was simple, we could do it and needed partnerships at the top of the order, we started well and we got only small partnerships, that hurt us in the end. We will try to correct the mistakes from this game, we need to focus on building big parnerships.”
Babar Azam
Pakistan will play Afghanistan next on Monday (October 23) in Chennai.
