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Raja opined that Pakistan should have found a way to ease the batter out of the series instead of dropping him after the opening game despite his struggles, while also expressing confidence in the 30-year-old to bounceback.
Ramiz Raja reflected on his thoughts over Pakistan opting to drop star batter Babar Azam amid his struggles with form in Test whites as the 62-year-old opined that Pakistan should have navigated a way to ease the batter out of a series.
Babar has experienced a tough patch with his melee for form in the longest form of cricket as his terrible run continued during the side’s Test series against England as the batter was dismissed cheaply in the opening fixture that Pakistan surrendered.
He was dropped for the subsequent two games against the visitors, and Pakistan eventually went on to turn the series on its head to post a 2-1 win over the tourists.
Raja said Babar should have been consulted if he required some time off the game during the testing phase.
“Well, I think my, my stance is quite public and I maintained that, you know, he should have been asked whether he needed time off cricket or not,” Raja began.
“Obviously his his form wasn’t great,” he acknowledged.
Raja shed light on the batter’s track record and the impact he has had on the Pakistani side and suggested that the batter will eye a quick comeback.
“But even then, I mean his body of work, it suggests that you know, there should have been a much better way of easing him out of a Test series,” he asserted.
Raja, however, backed the batter to battle back to prime form citing new-found motivation as a key factor.
“So it was probably a knee-jerk reaction, but I’m sure that, you know, he’ll come back as a stronger individual.
“That’s the most important thing now because when you want to prove a point again, this is probably the first time that he’s been dropped in his career,” he stated.
“So let’s see how the comeback is or whether he’s inspired, whether he’s changed his technique a little bit and how motivated he is because such things can spur on an individual and Barbar Azam is a class act and I’m sure that he’ll want to prove a point,” Raja concluded.