'I Didn't Understand Why Babar Azam Gave Ball to Mohammad Nawaz in That Over': Wasim Akram

Legendary pacer Wasim Akram pointed out the mistake Babar Azam committed as skipper in the ODI World Cup match against South Africa which cost Pakistan the match in Chennai. Pakistan suffered a fourth straight defeat on Friday which made their chances of making it to the semifinals extremely low.

The Asian giants needed one wicket to win the match with three overs left while the Proteas were five runs short of the target and Babar decided to bring Mohammad Nawaz into the attack to bowl the 48th over.

South Africa tailender Tabraiz Shamsi took an easy single on the first ball, while Keshav Maharaj guided the second to a boundary at square leg to seal the game for the Proteas. It was a poor delivery from Nawaz on the leg-stump as Maharaj didn’t find much difficulty in guiding it into the gap.

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Akram suggested Babar did fine as captain but the decision to give the ball to Nawaz ahead of Usama Mir cost Pakistan the big clash.

“There were a couple of mistakes at the end. When a team loses then criticism is natural. The last over was given to Nawaz. I know the whole country will attack Nawaz but at that time Usama Mir had two overs left. Who was bowling better at that moment? Usama Mir. Who had more chances of baffling the tailenders with googlies? Usama. His first three-four overs weren’t good but he got two wickets for you. So Usama should have bowled that over, then Nawaz. Otherwise, the captaincy was fine. he bowled the main bowlers, got wickets. But I didn’t understand why he gave the ball to Nawaz in that over. His confidence was not there. The angle he creates with his release point will always take the ball down the leg side. So that was a massive mistake from our captain,” he said on A Sports.

Meanwhile, the legendary pacer was impressed with Haris Rauf and Mohammad Wasim Jr for bowling the heart out at the tricky stage of the match,

“They made a game out of it. Haris bowled his heart out. It was good to see Wasim making an impact in this game. He’s got the talent, we all know but he didn’t get consistent chances. Today he was very good. His pace was up, bowled consistently over 140. He got some swing and troubled the South African batters,” he added.