Skipper Babar Azam admits Pakistan’s Twenty20 World Cup win will lift his status as one of the best in the game as team goals and personal milestones can coexist in cricket.
In a candid Pakistan Cricket Board podcast ahead of Pakistan’s Twenty20 World Cup campaign Babar reiterated his long-time ambition of lifting an International Cricket Council (ICC) trophy that has eluded him since his teenage days.
The 29-year-old is set to lead Pakistan in his third Twenty20 World Cup when the 20-team competition begins in the United States on June 1.
Under his leadership, Pakistan fell at Dubai’s semi-final to Australia in 2021 and in the final to England at the iconic MCG in Australia a year later.
That adds to his quarter-final finish at the 2012 ICC Under-19 World Cup in Australia as skipper, two years after Pakistan’s runners-up finish when Babar did not skipper the side in the same tournament in New Zealand.
He feels having achieved number-one rankings in both ODIs and T20Is and winning a number of series will become secondary if a trophy comes to his captaincy record.
“As a batter, you have achieved a lot of things and as a captain you have won series but lifting ICC trophies will give you a different motivation, you go to a different level and get a lot of praise.
“So that is my motivation in life, it’s my dream to lift an ICC trophy and name it for Pakistan,” said Babar under whom Pakistan crashed out in the first round of the 50-over World Cup in India last year.
“We came close but couldn’t win and that was Allah’s will. I won the Champions trophy (in 2017 in the UK) but that was as a player.”
Babar said Pakistan should have done better in the last two World Cups.
“I think the semi-final we lost against Australia (2021), we could have won that. In that match, fielding was the reason that made a different impact. If we had bowled two or three dot balls in the final stages, then the pressure would have got to them. But we lost as a team and not due to an individual.
“For me, in 2022, we could and should have won the India game, but they took it away.
“The most hurtful was the defeat against Zimbabwe. It hurts more because we had played good cricket against India and people were praising our performance and fightback.
“In the final, Shaheen’s injury was impactful because, at that time, the pressure was on them (England). We were forced to give an over to a spinner and that made a difference.”
Going to the United States for the first-ever cricket tournament excites Babar.
“We are going to the USA for the first time to play cricket where there are drop-in pitches, so you get a different environment and vibes,” said Babar who admits to nerves in a high-octane India-Pakistan match.
“Conditions in the USA may pose challenges as we are going there as a national side for the first time. We are in the process of collating various cricket and match-related information from players who have played there, which can help and assist us in our preparations.”
“India-Pakistan match is always the most talked about,” said Babar of the big match in Big Apple, New York. “The whole world is focused on the day when the India-Pakistan match is held. So there are nerves, naturally, so we need to keep our focus and keep yourselves on the basics.
“It is a pressure game, always, so the more you keep yourself cool and calm, believe in your skills and hard work then things get easier.”
Having led Pakistan in 81 T20Is with 46 wins — most by any captain in the world — Babar knows his responsibilities.
“There is too much responsibility,” said Babar who took over as T20I skipper in November 2019. “You have players and the management and you have to keep communicating with them. You have to control your emotions and back your players because you have to take performance out of them.
“But since I have been doing it for a longer time, it has become a normal routine. I switch on myself as per the needs, sometimes a player needs more confidence especially when the performance is low.
“You should know how to lift a player, remind him of his good performances, good bowling or good innings and if you do that you bring him back to normal.”
Babar vociferously denied any tension between the players and termed the “team environment” as ideal.
“Whatever things happened were cooked up. What was not there was presented in a way that something big has happened,” Babar played down the discord reports in the wake of him taking over from Shaheen Shah Afridi.
“This is an era of social media. In the last one and a half or two years, when I wake up and see something is cooked against me, I think about what has happened. The way it is presented, people start to doubt. Such things that we had a fight, we had some problems. There are no such things and when something like this happens we don’t show it to the world.
“Everyone knows his responsibility and role. The aim is to win the World Cup and if we don’t play in a united manner we won’t be able to do that. So the aim and focus for every player is to win this World Cup.
“We have to give the best performance, otherwise we won’t be able to do that.”
