Pakistan’s bowling coach Umar Gul held a press conference after the first T20I against New Zealand where the visitors were handed a 46-run defeat at Eden Park, Auckland, on Friday.
Gul opened up on Babar Azam’s knock during the chase of the 227-run target saying that the 29-year-old will get the required confidence after today’s performance.
“Obviously Babar is our top player and is one of the best players in the world. Even if you see his runs in the last series, he was not out of form but sometimes your luck does not support you. He scoring 30-40 runs, we were expecting big innings from him like scoring a century, unfortunately, he couldn’t do that,” Gul said in a presser.
“If you talk about today, his strike rate and the way he batted, I think it is a positive sign for Pakistan that Babar gained the [much-needed] confidence. As I said before, luck wasn’t on his side but I’m sure that after today’s innings, he would have gained the confidence, which is good for him as well as the team.”
It must be noted that Shaheen Afridi’s first assignment as the shortest format captain didn’t go as planned as despite a brilliant start provided by Saim Ayub’s remarkable knock scoring 27 off just 8, the Green Shirts crumbled in their chase and couldn’t convert that into a win.
Azam top-scored for the losing side by scoring 57 runs off 35 balls but his efforts were not enough in front of the mammoth target set by the Black Caps.
Earlier in the first innings, Daryl Mitchell and Kane Williamson were New Zealand’s best performers with the bat as the two scored 57 and 61 runs respectively.
Williamson was given a life at 11 as he was dropped by Babar Azam. The Kiwi skipper took full advantage of the chance and ended up scoring a fantastic half-century.
Although the 33-year-old didn’t play with a massive strike rate (135.71), he did manage to provide room for other players like Finn Allen (35 off 15) and Mitchell (61 off 27) who breathe fire with their bat and scored runs with the strike rates of 233 and 255 respectively.
All of Pakistan’s bowlers were taken to the cleaners, with just Abbas Afridi and Haris Rauf bowling with a decent economy of 8.50 each.
Afridi, who provided an excellent start with a wicket in the first over, failed to capitalise on that and ended up conceding 46 runs while taking three wickets.
- Babar Azam