|| THE GLOBALIC – Samarth Singh || Babar Azam who has been facing immense trouble with his bat for a long stretched period of time has got another setback during the ongoing 3-match test series against England. The former Pakistan captain failed to make any impact in the game and went packing without troubling the scorers at below-par scores in both the innings. Owing to this reason Babar was dropped from the team squad for the test game commencing on October 15th in Multan.
Shaheen Afridi joins Babar Azam in being rested for the second Test against England
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) took a bold step after facing a humiliating defeat in the first test against the team led by Ollie Pope. Taking note of the unsatisfactory performances of senior players in the game Babar along with Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Sarfaraz Ahmed were not included in Pakistan’s squad. Seeing the results of the first game, PCB wants to experiment with the new faces in the team, hence Haseebullah, Mehran Mumtaz, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Ali, and Sajid Khan have been named in the squad.
With this the 16-member squad of Pakistan for the second and third tests is comprised of- Shan Masood (c), Saud Shakeel (vc), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Haseebullah (wk), Kamran Ghulam, Mehran Mumtaz, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Huraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, and Zahid Mehmood.
Reaction of Fakhar Zaman on Babar Azam’s exclusion
As soon as the PCB announced the team, renowned batter Fakhar Zaman wasted no time in expressing his anger with the decision. The 34-year-old took to social media and opined in favor of Babar Azam. Fakhar while advocating for Babar compared him with Virat Kohli and stated that India didn’t drop Kohli from their team when he faced a dip in his form. Fakhar went on to name Babar Azam as the best batter ever produced by Pakistan and urged the board to support him instead of undermining him.
Fans lambast Fakhar Zaman for comparing Babar Azam with Virat Kohli
Although Fakhar did not criticize or mock India’s star batter Virat Kohli, fans still found it disrespectful to compare their cricket icon to Babar as according to them there is a huge difference between both the players in terms of batting skills, class, consistency, records, achievements and overall performance. Here are some notable reactions of the fans:
