Always wished to have a batter like Babar Azam in the team that could stay at the crease and score runs patiently: Saeed Ajmal

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam is one of the most consistent batters in world cricket at the moment. He is currently topping the ICC Men's ODI ranking charts, third in T20Is and fifth in Test cricket, and that shows his class as a batter in the recent past. Under his leadership, the team has also featured in the finals of the 2022 Asia Cup and T20 World Cup 2022 and has been delivering on a consistent basis.

Meanwhile, talking about the 28-year-old, former Pakistan international Saeed Ajmal mentioned that he always wanted a cricketer like Babar during his playing days as the batter could occupy the crease and make the job of a bowler difficult. He also added that the national team needs three or more players like Babar in order to strengthen the squad in the coming times.

“For as long as I played cricket, I always wished to have a batter like Babar Azam in the team that could stay on the crease and score runs patiently so that bowlers can get a slight edge or at least something to defend, let alone bowl aggressively. However, at that time, our bowlers were pretty weak. Now when the batting is strong, bowling has been feeble lately. That is why earlier I mentioned that we need two or three more players like Babar Azam, which wasn't meant to criticise anyone but only to imply that it will only strengthen the team,” Ajmal stated while talking to Cricket Pakistan.

The 45-year-old also stated that since Babar is doing good in all three formats of the game, the fans should support the cricketer instead of criticising him time and again.

“If one of your players is topping the ranking charts in T20Is, ODIs and also stands amongst top ten in the Test format - with that he's able to pull off the fastest 5000 runs, accumulating highest amount of runs - conclusively he's holding the all the essential records to his name. Then why wouldn't and shouldn't we support him?” Ajmal added.