The Pakistani cricketers will like to forget the T20 World Cup 2024 as soon as possible because it is certainly one of the worst performances of the Pakistani team in any ICC event.
The star-studded Pakistani side wasn’t able to proceed to the Super Eight stage and had to exit from the league phase of the tournament. Babar Azam-led team suffered losses against USA and India because of their extremely bad performances. Though they bounced back in the match against Canada, they did nothing extraordinary for which they should be praised.
Yesterday, the match between USA and Ireland which was scheduled to be played at Central Broward Park & Broward County Stadium, Florida got abandoned because of heavy rains. For Pakistan to enter the Super Eight, Ireland should have defeated USA but as the match got washed out, both the teams earned 1-1 point each and now USA has 5 points. Pakistan has 2 points and now even if Pakistan wins the match against Ireland which is going to be played tomorrow, it will have 4 points in total which means that Pakistan is officially out of the T20 World Cup.
With Pakistan’s exit from the T20 World Cup, the voices that are speaking against the Pakistani team are getting louder and the Pakistani cricketer Ahmed Shehzad who recently called Babar Azam a fraud king once again ripped apart the Pakistani team and demanded sacking of Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammed Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman.
While speaking at a show, Ahmed Shehzad said, “For the past five years, Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammed Rizwan, Fakhar Zaman and Haris Rauf, they have played together and this lot has got enough opportunities but they have failed to deliver. The kind of groupings that are happening in the team… there is a lack of leadership. They keep saying they’re learning from their mistakes. Aap kya seekh rahe hain? Against Canada, when you needed to up your run rate, Rizwan scored the slowest fifty, and Babar scored run-a-ball. There were no demons on that pitch.”
Ahmed Shehzad alleges that these players have always kept personal milestones above the interests of the team. In his words, “The problem is that (players chasing) personal milestones have ruined Pakistan cricket. That’s why we’re in this situation right now. They haven’t learnt anything. There is no leadership in this team. You’re (Babar Azam) just a social media-generated king. You’ve had four to five years… You guys play politics; you guys don’t have the required fitness level. You have played your peak cricket and now your cricket is declining. You have not let anyone else come into the team. Till now you have maintained friendships only.”
He added, “Now people will come and scare the PCB chief that if he will remove 7-8 cricketers, then the team will lose its aura. But these are the guys, who are putting friendships over the country and if you remove only two or three from this lot then it would be an injustice for them. Remove all of them.”
Here is the video clip in which you can hear Ahmed Shehzad slamming Babar Azam and other Pakistani cricketers:
https://x.com/ArbishSidiqui/status/1801921670468239543/video/1
Click to watch this video directly on X
The manner in which the Pakistani cricket team has played in this T20 World Cup, there will be hardly any Pakistani cricket fan who won’t agree with Ahmed Shehzad, what do you say?
