Pakistan vs England: Babar Azam 'should be dropped...' says Pak Batting legend Zaheer Abbas

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Pakistan vs England: Babar Azam's place in the Pakistan cricket team has come under fire, with former cricket legend Zaheer Abbas calling for the star batter to be dropped due to poor form.

Abbas, famously known as the "Asian Bradman" and one of Pakistan's greatest-ever cricketers, expressed his views during the Cricket Predicta Conclave organised in Ajman, UAE, to celebrate the hundredth episode of the international cricket talk show 'Cricket Predicta'.

"Babar Azam should be dropped from the team," Abbas said at the event. "If he's not scoring runs, because if he's our main batsman and he's out of form, he should be out of the team."

Babar Azam has been struggling with form since Pakistan's disappointing run in the ICC World Cup in India last year. In the recent Test series against Bangladesh, he registered scores of 0, 22, 11, and 31. Pakistan's loss in the series and Babar's exclusion from the ICC top 10 rankings for batters for the first time in years have further intensified the calls for a change in leadership and form.

The slump follows Pakistan's early exit from the 2024 T20 World Cup, where consecutive losses to the USA and India knocked them out in the group stage. Reports in the media suggest that Babar's position as Pakistan's white-ball captain is now under review, and he could be replaced ahead of the team's upcoming tour of Australia in November.

Other than raising concerns about Babar Azam's contribution as a captain and batter, Zaheer Abbas also discussed the broader challenges facing Pakistan cricket.

"As you all know, the Pakistan team is not performing well, so we have to do much better," Abbas said in the discussion. "And PCB is obviously, if the team is not doing well, nobody would say that PCB is doing well. So, performance of PCB and the cricket team is not that good."

The beleaguered cricket board was recently in the news for the wrong reasons when Pakistani batter Ahmed Shehzad pulled out of the Cricket Champions Cup in September after accusing the PCB of 'favouritism, false promises, and injustice'.