“Left Everything On God”: Ex-Pakistan Captain Blasts ‘Clueless, Timid’ Babar Azam After USA Loss

Pakistan cricket team’s shock loss to the United States of America (USA) in their T20 World Cup match has sparked an epic rant from former captain Misbah-ul-Haq, who questioned skipper Babar Azam over his “casual” and “timid” leadership during the match. USA stunned Pakistsan on Thursday, beating the 2009 T20 World Cup champions after a thrilling Super Over finish at the Prairie View Stadium in Dallas, Texas. In response to Pakistan’s 159/7, USA took the game to a Super Over, courtesy of a last ball boundary from Nitish Kumar.

After the loss, Babar said that the Pakistan players failed to execute the plans give to them. However, Misbah was left fuming over the same as he questioned Babar’s “clueless” captaincy in the match. 

“Since you’ve picked the squad, we have been saying that there is no balance. You don’t have a fast bowling all-rounder. The conditions are saying that play a spinner but you didn’t. Very casual approach, timid (captaincy). It looked like we left eveyrthing on god and ended up getting dominated. Babar said we failed to execute plans. Let me tell you, there wasn’t any plan,” Misbah said on Ten Sports.

Misbah reckoned that the USA were more strategically sound and showed good game awareness to outclass Pakistan.

“There was no plan. When it came to handling the fast bowlers, we didn’t know who would bowl after the first over. Both Naseem and Amir were walking to take the run-up. So we did not have a plan for even 2 overs. They looked clueless. In the Super Over, they were pinching extra runs via byes. In terms of fitness, in terms of speed, in terms of smartness, they defeated.”

The former Pakistan head coach also slammed the PCB for changing he white-ball captaincy and for not addressing the real issues in the team after the poor show in the World Cup last year.

“In the last 6 months, look at whatever has happened behind the scenes. After the ODI World Cup, there was a musical chair for the board chairman role, and then for captaincy. The problems that came out of the ODI World Cup, we were not able to settle them down. They have one in with the same batting order, the same spin bowling unit, same balance of the team, captaincy, and planning. The chronic problems resurfaced,” he added.