Former Pakistan spinner Saeed Ajmal has launched a scathing attack on the PCB for dropping Babar Azam from the T20I squad for the tour of New Zealand. Ajmal feels that Babar should have been backed as he is one of the best players in the team.

Pakistan made some surprising changes in their squad for the tour of New Zealand. While the ODI squad didn’t have many surprises, the T20I squad saw both the star cricketers Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan getting dropped.

The selection saw mixed reactions from the country’s former cricketers. While some of them backed the move to give some more chances to the fearless youngsters, some of them criticized the move to drop a player who has been talismanic for his country in this format.

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Saeed Ajmal tears apart PCB for dropping Babar Azam

During a conversation with Sportstar, Saeed Ajmal criticized the ouster of Babar Azam in strong words. Ajmal questioned the move to drop a player of Babar’s stature and even asked the country’s former cricketers to keep their mouths shut.

“Aapke paas ek hi toh star hai (You have only one star). If you degrade him also, then how will your cricket run? These are the big issues. Our former cricketers should keep their mouths shut,” Ajmal observed.

Ajmal further asked the fans and the PCB to have patience with Babar and let him go past his bad patch of form. He cited the example of Sachin Tendulkar, who also didn’t score in every match.

“As a cricketer, one must realize that bad patches are part of a player’s career. You can’t play cricket the same way all your life. Even if you were Sachin Tendulkar, you couldn’t score 100 runs in every match,” he added.

Saeed Ajmal backs Babar Azam & Mohammad Rizwan

The former Pakistan offspinner backed both Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and hailed their amazing consistency with the bat over the years. He slammed the PCB for the way they kicked out Babar from the T20I team and claimed that the numbers of other players aren’t great either.

“Look, the way you’ve removed them is wrong. It’s not like they are the only ones who haven’t scored while others have. That’s not the case. Ideally, the selectors should sit down with Babar and discuss rest so that he can come back stronger,” Ajmal advised the PCB.

“Babar (Azam) and (Mohammad) Rizwan are great players. Their stats are as good as anyone’s, but the only difference is that they don’t bat aggressively, but they still score runs. Our guys have suddenly realised that in international cricket, everyone plays aggressively,” he noted.

Speaking about the issue of strike rates, Ajmal cited the example of Virat Kohli, who has been immensely successful in pacing his innings rather than going aggressively from the first ball.

Babar Azam’s low strike rate in T20 cricket

Babar Azam has received heavy criticism from the country’s media and the former cricketers for his recent batting form. He scored 87 runs in two matches in the recently concluded Champions Trophy at a strike rate of just 75.

Babar has an excellent record in T20Is but the low strike rate has often led to his criticism. At a time when T20 cricket is evolving rapidly, Babar’s inability to change gears quickly hasn’t helped the team’s cause.

He has scored 4223 runs in 128 T20Is at an average of 39.83 but a strike rate of less than 130 is often seen as a weakness in a batting line-up. The 30-year-old needs to adapt to modern-day cricket in order to make his way back into the team.