"You should ask him who is a star"- Babar Azam responds to Shoaib Akhtar's comments
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has responded to former speedster Shoaib Akhtar's comments, which mentioned that the current Pakistan team had no star players.
The 26-year-old insisted that his players give their best, and he doesn't want to comment on what Akhtar had to say.
Shoaib Akhtar has become a famous YouTuber in his post-playing days and has been at times critical of the way Pakistan play their cricket. However, Babar Azam has backed his team and believes this group of players possess the right talent and attitude.
Babar Azam was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan:
"I think he [Shoaib Akhtar] doesn’t think so, but all the players are giving their 100 per cent everywhere. I think you should ask him who a star is and who isn't. I can't argue or give comments on this."
We lost the game due to bowling and fielding: Babar Azam
Babar Azam's men lost their third ODI against England on Tuesday, culminating in a 3-0 sweep of the series. However, he defended his team's batting effort in the fixture in Birmingham.
A career-best 158 from the Pakistan skipper and a handy 74 from Mohammad Rizwan saw the visitors post a daunting 331-9 in their 50 overs.
Pakistan's batting had failed miserably in the first two games, and so Babar Azam felt that it was a great effort to post that kind of a total on what he believed was a two-paced wicket.
"If we talk about the batting, the ball was coming on with a bit of double pace early on. We were trying to get a partnership going. The longer we took it, the better for us because we could have recovered towards the end. I had a partnership with Imam and then another good one with Mohammad Rizwan. I think the score was enough. We could have scored more but lost some back-to-back wickets."
However, Babar was also quick to accept that Pakistan's bowling was below par, and even a second-string England batting line-up ended up chasing the target with three wickets in hand.
"In the first two matches, our batting let us down. We lost early wickets in the first ten overs. We didn’t have momentum because of that. I have said it before as well that we lost the match today because of bowling and fielding."