Throughout his cricketing career, Saeed Ajmal wished to have a batter who could stay on the crease and provide the bowlers with something to defend
PHOTO: AFP
Saeed Ajmal has expressed his admiration for Babar Azam and revealed that he always yearned for a batter like him in the national team during his playing days.
While speaking to Cricket Pakistan in an exclusive interview, Ajmal said that having a player like Babar in the team would have made a significant difference.
Ajmal also spoke about a recent statement he made regarding Babar Azam, where he mentioned that Pakistan needs more "selfish" batters like him.
"For as long as I played cricket, I always wished to have a batter like Babar Azam in the team that could stay on the crease and score runs patiently, so that bowlers can get a slight edge or at least something to defend, let alone bowl aggressively. However, at that time, our bowlers were pretty weak. Now when the batting is strong, bowling has been feeble lately. That is why earlier I mentioned that we need two or three more players like Babar Azam, which wasn't meant to criticize anyone but only to imply that it will only strengthen the team," Ajmal said.
Given Babar's exceptional achievements, Ajmal believes it is crucial for the team and the fans to fully support him.
"If one of your players is topping the ranking charts in T20Is, ODIs and also stands amongst top ten in the Test format - with that he's able to pull off the fastest 5000 runs, accumulating highest amount of runs - conclusively he's holding the all the essential records to his name. Then why wouldn't and shouldn't we support him?" he questioned.
Acknowledging that Babar may have some flaws in his captaincy, Ajmal suggests that these shortcomings can be addressed.
"I agree that he might have some captaincy flaws, but that can be sorted by teaching him, by mentoring him in a wise way. His batting is flawless, and there is no need for undue criticism on that," he concluded.
