'I feel he's under a lot of pressure' - Dinesh Karthik expresses concern over Babar Azam's current form

Star batter and the former skipper of Pakistan, Babar Azam, has been struggling with his red-ball performances since quite some time now. Adding to his woes, the rough patch further continued in the ongoing Test series between Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the three innings he has featured in so far, his scores have read 0, 22, and 31, respectively.  

During a recent discussion, the former Indian cricketer-turned-commentator, Dinesh Karthik, expressed his thoughts on how the batter has been struggling for runs. Though, he had no doubts whatsoever regarding Babar's innate attributes as a player, but felt that he was under extreme stress due to him having to harbour the ropes of captaincy of the side in other formats than the longest one for the time being. 

"Babar Azam as a player, nobody can doubt his quality. He's got outstanding batting potential, though I feel he's under a lot of pressure," stated Karthik during Cricbuzz's Hey CB with DK.

Besides, Karthik also spoke on one crucial decision which was taken by Pakistan during the first Test which was regarding the declaration. He had a piece of advice for what the norm generally should be for the teams batting in a red-ball game in the Asian subcontinent.

"That's something they need to rethink. In that Test match against Bangladesh, I thought they declared a touch too early. In Asia, it's about batting big and batting long in the first innings," mentioned Karthik.

Also Read: The entire nation does not have a problem with anything except the form of Babar Azam: Ramiz Raja

Karthik pointed out role of finance in having strong domestic cricket and beyond

Furthermore, the once technically sound batter Dinesh Karthik also explained the correlation between the fiscal condition of Pakistan's cricket which has hampered the progress of players in the domestic setup in terms of the basic amenities at disposal. As a result, the strength of new players worthy enough of representing the nation at the international level has been missing.

"Financially, they've had their struggles, and hence, it reflects in the infrastructure development, and in turn, in their domestic cricket. It's a very big cycle - how you get your finances, how you use them for cricket, and how you make sure that domestic cricket is strong enough to feed into international cricket," Karthik concluded.