Babar Azam defends captaincy: ‘I am under no pressure, I’ve been doing this for the last two-three years’ | Cricket-world-cup News

The festival season drags on in the City of Joy. The first time Pakan landed here, Kolkata was hungover from the Durga Puja. Two weeks later, as they return for one last time in the World Cup. Diwali and Kali Puja are ushering in. But the mood in their camp, though, would be far from festive, as their semifinal hopes are as bleak as reaching on time for a function in the city during the festival time, as you would be bumping into one block after the other.
Similarly, Pakan have most avenues to the semifinals reaching dead-ends. All but the dreamers and romantics would still nurse hopes of them reaching the last four, in which case they would encounter India in a dream knockout match. To achieve that, though, they need to beat England 287 runs if they bat first or with 284 balls to spare if they are chasing. Pakan captain Babar Azam semi-seriously said: “I think there is one match left. You never know. It is cricket.” He turned a bit philosophical too: “There should be hope at all times. At any stage, at any work you do, you should have positive hope and I firmly believe in that.”
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But deep inside, Babar would know the improbability of the task that confronts them. Even their propensity to conjure miracles, this is a miracle too far. Rather, it’s a time to rue about missed opportunities. This was classical Pakan, veering between mediocrity and sublime. They managed the highest chase ever in the tournament, beat New Zealand on DLS chasing a steel total. Yet, they could not convert the spark into a sustained fire.
Of all the defeats, the one against South Africa a wicket still rankles Babar. “I think the South African match cost us and we should have won that match, but unfortunately, we didn’t win that because of which we are at this stage.” he said. But one that set them aback psychologically was the hammering at the hands of India in the Ahmedabad cauldron, after which they lost four on the spin. From thereon, it was always an uphill task for them to reach the last four.
At the heart of the storm was the leadership of Babar. Among the most vociferous was Shahid Afridi, who fumed during a show in SAMA TV “ If a captain gives his best, dives during the field, backs other players between overs, the entire team will get [more] active, because when they see that the captain is giving his all and we are not, they feel ashamed that my captain is doing so much, why can’t I be the same?”he said, adding: “At the end of the day, everything comes right back to the captain.”
Babar, though, was defiant. Add his comparatively meagre returns with the bat—282 runs in eight innings—there is a school of thought that he should relinquish captaincy and focus on batting. Even a Virat Kohli parallel was struck. Babar would retort: “It’s just because I have not performed the way I should have in the World Cup, that’s why people are saying that I am under pressure. I am under no pressure. I have been doing this for the last two and a half to three years. I was the one who was performing and I was the one who was the captain. I was applying the same thing..” Towards the end of the press conference, he would admit: “I had high expectations but I couldn’t perform as per expectations. I accept that.”
He did acknowledge that his men took time to adjust to the conditions. “We came here for the first time, we didn’t have the awareness of how to take it, but we adapted as soon as possible in practice, that we will have to face it like this. So, we faced this thing, we took it and planned accordingly how do we bat here,” he elaborated. Most Read
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But apart from the trio of Fakhar Zaman, Abdhullah Shafique and Mohammed Rizwan (to an extent, though he struggled after the monumental knock against Sri Lanka), the rest were woefully inconsent to mount a serious title challenge. The middle-order was both inept, to put it mildly.
A bigger worry would be Pakan’s fall from grace as a force to be reckoned with in 50-over cricket. This century, they have reached the semifinal just once (2011) in five editions before this. From 1987 to 1999, they were winners, runners-up and semi final once apiece in four editions. “Because we haven’t done well in this World Cup or the last World Cup, you can’t say that we haven’t done well since 99, we have dominated and we were number one in one day. Yes, we are not able to finish well. We will work on that,” he said.
Towards the middle of the interaction, a question mildly irritated him. It was about “some decisions being made in Lahore”. Babar replied: “I have no idea what decisions you are talking about.” He understood the implication that it was regarding his captaincy, and gave a blunt reply: “About the captaincy – as I said, once we go back to Pakan or after this match, we will see what happens. But right now, I am not focusing on this, my focus is on the next match.” The only crumb of comfort is that they are meeting a team whose fall was steeper than them. The mood of the game would be as contrasting as the festivity around them.