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Pakistan lost to Sri Lanka in the |
Saqlain Mushtaq defend Pakistan
team after Asia Cup 2022 defeat by Sri Lanka
After the defeat in the Asia Cup
2022 final, national team coach Saqlain Mushtaq defended the team’s style of
playing in T20Is and rejected the reservations raised on captain Babar Azam’s
performance and said that he did not find any fault in the batting of opener
Muhammad Rizwan.
According to the report of
foreign news agencies, national team coach Saqlain Mushtaq is not worried about
Rizwan’s slow batting rate of 117.57 runs per hundred balls in the shortest
format, while Indian batsman Virat Kohli scored 147.59 in his five innings.
Scored 276 runs for India at a fast pace.
The national team failed to chase
down 171 runs to beat Sri Lanka while their 23-run defeat ended the winning
streak of teams batting second in Dubai.
Mohammad Rizwan scored 55 runs in
49 balls and scored the highest runs in the tournament with 281 runs in 6
innings of the tournament.
Saqlain Mushtaq said that
‘everyone has their own style of playing cricket.
Saqlain Mushtaq said that we did
it all with our style of play and the things that were left will be worked on,
instead of adopting the style of play of other national teams.
Babar Azam, recognized as a
standout scorer for the team before the tournament, scored 68 runs in 6
matches, including a single-match highest of 30, but Saqlain Mushtaq expressed
the opener’s lack of form.
The national team coach said that
I have said before that only a keen observer of cricket can understand that the
manner in which they got out was unfortunate.
Commenting on Babar Azam, he said
that the way he played, his work style is no longer debated, he is a world
class player and may Allah protect him from evil eyes.
Saqlain Mushtaq said, “If
you look at the rankings, he is at the top in T20 Internationals and ODIs. It’s
just unfortunate that he got out like that because the way he’s been training
and playing. Amazingly, their style of work is different.
The 27-year-old Babar Azam, who
scored 754 runs for 2 losses in 80 T20 Internationals, recently lost his top
spot in the ICC T20 rankings to fellow opener Mohammad Rizwan.
Babar Azam’s last outing of the
tournament was at the side with a good catch at short fine leg and fell victim
to fast bowler Pramod Madhushan, who took 4 wickets.
Saqlain Mushtaq also rejected
suggestions of a left-right opening combination of Fakhar Zaman with either
Babar Azam or Mohammad Rizwan.
“If you keep changing
positions, it shows that you trust them, you have to give them time, and it’s
not good to keep changing too much, which creates the wrong impression,”
he said.
Saqlain Mushtaq also lauded
champions Sri Lanka for their excellent performance in the finals, which had
earlier defeated Pakistan, India and Afghanistan in the Super Four stage.
The national team coach added
that Sri Lanka batted second and then batted first against us and became
champions so they deserved the win well.
“We played good cricket in
the first 9 overs and after that they played around 31 overs and dominated us
in all aspects including batting, bowling and fielding,” he said.