'Defeat to India Caused Damage to our Mental State': Ex-Pak Captain Reacts to Criticism for Babar Azam

Pakistan started their Asia Cup 2023 campaign as favourites and were the first side to qualify for the Super Fours. But the defeats at the hands of India and Sri Lanka knocked them out of the continental event. Pakistan’s exit from the tournament has certainly left the fans fuming while a section of cricket lovers are calling for an immediate change in the leadership.

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Pakistan Captain Babar Azam has been at the receiving end since the team lost two games on the trot in the Asia Cup. At the same time, several media reports have claimed a rift in the dressing room following the elimination. Meanwhile, former cricketer Mohammad Hafeez has come forward in Babar’s defence, urging the fans not to scrutinize one single person over the team’s defeat.

“Don’t treat just one person as the culprit. Evaluate the results and decide why the team succeeded or faltered,” Hafeez said.

“I’m not favouring an individual. Just wanted to convey that I’ve tasted failures in my career and I know how it feels when you lose a World Cup final. But this is not the time to talk about changing the captain. Instead, we should support him and send India to the World Cup with our best wishes.

“Let’s wait and watch what happens there and then decide if we want to continue with him or we have someone better to take the responsibility,” he added.

Hafez further recalled Pakistan’s 228-run loss to India in the Asia Cup, stating that it wasn’t Babar’s responsibility alone to score those many runs and neither did he concede those 228 runs all by himself.

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“228 runs naa toh akele kaptaan ne karne the, naa hi usne akele khaaye (Neither Babar had to score those 228 runs, nor he conceded those runs). The players are responsible for that failure, and the management is responsible. I heard a statement that we hadn’t lost a match in the past three months… I couldn’t understand that. 3 months of success doesn’t give you the license to lose this badly. I understand that it hurts because we lost that way to India, the margin of defeat was big,” Hafeez said.

“I believe Pakistan were better in the first game that was abandoned. But the second game, it caused damage to our mental state. And the way we lost to Sri Lanka, we weren’t really there mentally. We were still hurting with loss against India,” he added.

Pakistan will be back to action during the World Cup warm-up games, starting September 29. The men in green will begin their campaign in the tournament on October 6 against the Netherlands.