ICC World Cup 2023: Babar Azam should leave captaincy, says former Pakistan captain

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Pakistan captain Babar Azam is facing flak back in his home after the side meekly surrendered to India in their latest and high-octane ICC World Cup 2023 match on October 16. Pakistan were all out for 191, which India chased down within 31 overs.

Pakistan were in a good position at 155/2 at one point but lost their last eight wickets for mere 36 runs in what was a catastrophic batting display by the neighbours, which left many of the experts stunned. Former Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik, who is currently out of the national team, blamed the poor show on Babar Azam's captaincy.

"I gave an opinion in the past as well that Babar Azam should leave captaincy. This is my personal opinion. Babar does not think out of the box as a captain. He is doing captaincy but the improvement is not coming. He can do wonders for Pakistan as a player," said Malik on A Sports.

Earlier, former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar came hard on the batters too for not capitalising on a good start. He felt if Indians batted first on the wicket, they would have easily scored 350 runs.

"Bhot hi buri batting Pakistan k janab se (Very poor batting by Pakistan)," said Shoaib Akhtar on his YouTube channel. "It was a good wicket with 325-340 runs on the offer but Pakistan didn't capitalise despite getting a good start."

Shoaib Akhtar made his worries clear about the Pakistan lower middle-order as he felt the players are not good enough in that section of the game to play the big role.

"I don't think the decision to field first was right by Rohit Sharma as they would have scored 350 runs comfortably. Having said that, Pakistan played just four batters and had no middle order with the dependence on the likes of Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed. I don't think this Pakistan batting line-up has the quality to put up big scores against big teams like India," ranted Akhtar.