ICC World Cup 2019 | Babar Azam needs to convert his fifties into hundreds, suggests Wasim Akram
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Wasim Akram has stated that Babar Azam is a world-class batsman but he needs to do away with the habit of being dismissed in the 50s and should work on converting them to 100s. Akram also hoped that Pakistan can repeat the 1992 performance against New Zealand in tomorrow’s encounter.
Pakistan’s one of the most consistent batsmen in the ODI format, Babar Azam averages a shade over 50 and is a glue to the mercurial Pakistani middle-order. However, one of the biggest problems that he has to face lately is the rate of conversion as the Pakistani No.3 is yet to convert his starts in the World Cup to big ones, scoring 69, 48, 30, 63, and 22 respectively. Akram suggested him to work on that aspect of the game in order to give Pakistan some stability.
"The openers did well, Babar did well, but Babar needs to convert his fifties into hundreds," said Akram while speaking of the Proteas game, reported India Today.
Pakistan have been at the top of catch-drop list with 14 chances going awry, which is a far cry from the time the team had developed their ground-fielding under the coaching of Steve Rixon. Akram said that Pakistan need to overcome the problem sooner than later.
"We have dropped 14 catches in the tournament. We are top on the list of teams dropping most catches in the World Cup which isn't a good sign. This isn't something new, but we need to overcome this problem,” Akram said.
With five points from six games, Pakistan are currently placed at the seventh spot on the table. They need to win all their remaining three games and also hope the results of matches going in their favor so as to make it to the last four stages. Tomorrow the team will face New Zealand, one of the two unbeaten sides in the tournament so far, and Akram hoped for a repeat of 1992's show when Pakistan had defeated the Black Caps by seven wickets in their crucial World Cup game in Christchurch.
"They were unbeaten in 1992 too before playing against us and we won the game, they're unbeaten again and I hope we repeat the show, but boys will have to give their best. There's no need to change the winning combination," he added.
