Pakistan captain Babar Azam has stated his intentions for the team’s forthcoming Bangladesh tour. The tour kicks off on Friday, November 19 in Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. It has been just over a week since Pakistan lost to Australia in the T20 World Cup semi-finals.
Matthew Wade hit 3 sixes in a succession off Shaheen Shah Afridi to push Pakistan out from the competition. Having looked at the failure at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, the Lahore-born Babar felt sad, but he also stressed the need of looking forward.
“The World Cup is in the past and we need to move on from it and move forward looking into the future keeping the momentum that we gathered,” said Babar.
“Certainly, it was disappointing to lose in the World Cup and the whole team got hurt. We have discussed our mistakes and the whole team is confident and we have full faith among us. I have tried not to break the momentum that we got from the World Cup and look, this is the time when we need to back our cricketers,” he stated.
Understand the things and we have to move forward: Babar Azam
Pakistan began the tournament with convincing victories against India and New Zealand. Following that, they cruised over Afghanistan, Namibia, and Scotland to secure first in Group 2. In contrast, Azam and team were the only undefeated team going into the semi-finals.
Unfortunately, their bowlers failed to fulfill in the semi-final, with the exception of Shadab Khan, who took 4 wickets. Babar, on the other hand, stated before the Bangladesh series that he did not want the World Cup suffering to limit their advancement.
“The cricketers are experienced enough and understand these things (losing in the World Cup semi-final) and now we have to move forward,” Azam added.
The Pakistan side has already arrived in Bangladesh and has begun aggressive preparation. Shoaib Malik and captain Babar have also been included in the team. Furthermore, the players’ COVID-19 tests were negative. Following the 3 Twenty20 Internationals on November 19, 20, and 22, Pakistan will tackle 2 Test matches at Chattogram and Dhaka.
