‘Our plan was to sledge Sachin, Jadeja, Sidhu but not to disturb Azharuddin’ : Basit Ali on Pakistan’s dressing room tactics

Basit Ali talks about how they made plans to sledge Sachin, Jadeja, and Sidhu but also made sure that they don’t disturb Azharuddin when he arrived at the crease.

India and Pakistan matches are always heated and we have seen enough on-field fights between the two teams take place. The tensions are high as both teams want to make sure they get the bragging rights whenever these two teams collide against each other. Both teams made their plans with the aim to bamboozle the oppostions. 

Former batter, Basit Ali, discussed how Pakistan team tried and planned to sledge the Indian batters, when they were in the middle but ensured that they never indulge in sledging Azharuddin when he was batting. 

On his YouTube channel, Basit Ali while having a conversation with Mohammed Azharuddin, revealed, “Before every India match, I was given the responsibility to sledge the Indian players. I was told to disturb Sachin (Tendulkar), Jadeja (Ajay), Sidhu (Navjot), Kambli (Vinod), but the moment Azhar bhai’s name used to come, the entire team unanimously said no one would disturb Azhar bhai. I don’t have words to describe the amount of respect we used to have for Azhar bhai in our dressing room”.

The former Pakistani batter then talks about how everyone used to respect Azhar and ensured nobody insulted him. He added, ‘’Be it Wasim (Akram) bhai, Salim Malik, Rashid Latif, Inzmam-ul-Haq and Waqar Younis, they would not dare to sledge Azhar bhai. I don’t think any Pakistan player ever insulted Azhar bhai.’’

Then he started praising the captaincy of the current Hyderabad Cricket Association President and said, “Azhar bhai used to bat at No 3 and when the likes of Ganguly and Dravid came up, he started batting low down the order and gave the youngsters his slot.” 

Azhar also recalled one of the incidents of him and Master-blaster Sachin Tendulkar when the latter came to him regarding his batting position in the ODIs. Azhar said, “During his first 69 ODIs, Sachin has batted in the middle order and he never used to get that many opportunities down the order. He asked me, and I can’t say no to such a talented player”.

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