Pakistan’s poor tactics on the field and some bad captaincy from Babar Azam led to their exit from the Asia Cup 2023. They lost a chance to play in the final of Asia’s mega event after losing to Sri Lanka. On their defeat, the former Indian opener feels it was Babar Azam’s captaincy that led Pakistan to miss the finals.
Pakistan got a heartbreaking last ball defeat in a match that could meet them with India in the Finals of the Asia Cup 2023. They lost to Sri Lanka by two wickets, but Charith Asalanka showed great calmness and composed himself to steal a last ball victory with a beautiful clip on the leg side.
The match was reduced to 42 overs, and Pakistan got momentum after the rain as they batted beautifully and gave a challenging target to Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, they could not save the target. Gautam Gambhir expressed the poor decisions of skipper Babar Azam and also shed light on the ordinary field placement.
Extremely ordinary captaincy by Babar Azam- Gautam Gambhir
Gautam Gambhir was having an interaction with Star Sports and was furious on Babar Azam for his tactics against Sri Lanka in the virtual semi final. Gautam Gambhir pointed out that Babar Azam didn’t communicate properly with the bowlers and fielders which hurt the Men in Green
“For me, extremely ordinary captaincy as well as Babar There was a four-hit over in Zaman Khan’s over mid-off, and there was another four-hit over in Shaheen Shah Afridi’s over the same area, and both deliveries were slower balls. If your bowlers want to bowl slower ones, bring the mid-off fielder to long-off and bring the third man up. This is an extremely simple captaincy. Imagine if they had 13 runs left in the last over; it would have been difficult for Sri Lanka to chase,” said Gautam Gambhir.
“You were allowing the game to drift at one stage. You wanted to complete your sixth bowler’s overs quota, but it does not work like that. When the partnership was growing between Kusal Mendis and Sadeera Samarawickrama, you should have brought on your main Shaheen and tried to pick one of them and break the stand,” he added.