“He is not up there with the top 15 batters in the world in T20 cricket” – Michael Vaughan on Babar Azam

Former England skipper Michael Vaughan believes Babar Azam is not there with the top 15 batters in T20 cricket. Pakistan was knocked out of the ongoing T20 World Cup after losing to arch-rivals India and the USA in the group stage.

Azam’s captaincy and mundane batting performance in the T20 World Cup have been questioned by many cricket boffins. The Pakistan captain scored an unbeaten knock of 32 runs off 34 balls against Ireland at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium Turf Ground, Lauderhill, Florida on Sunday in the run-chase of 107 to help his team win by three wickets.

The flamboyant batter scored 122 runs in four matches of the T20I showpiece at an average of 40.66 but could only score his runs at a strike rate of 101.66. Vaughan said he doesn’t see Babar Azam as Pakistan’s T20I captain.

“I still don’t see him as a T20 captain. I see him as a Test and 50-over captain, in those formats in which he excels as a player. In T20 cricket, his game is very good , a pure player, but he is not up there with the top 15 batters in the world in T20 cricket. I think there are better players than him up the order,” Vaughan said on Cricbuzz. 

Vaughan said there is no point in changing the Pakistan captaincy once again and they need to be consistent.

“I hope I don’t see them changing again. Somewhere they got to have some consistency. There is no point in changing once again, so even if he is not perfectly suited to captaining T20 cricket, I do think, for this period, they should stay consistent, because the last thing Pakistan need is more kamikaze, swapping and changing, and overreacting,” Vaughan said.

Vaughan reckons the current Pakistan team is not up to the mark and they should make the required changes to get back on track.

“At the moment, on paper, it is just not a good team. It is down to the coaches and the selectors, and the system back in Pakistan to give the captain and coach a pool of players to choose from. They probably have them,” Vaughan added.

Pakistan has a solid bowling attack but their batting needs a fresh approach.