‘We need to move on’ – Babar Azam focussed on Bangladesh sojourn after T20 World Cup disappointment

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has set his goals clear for the team’s upcoming tour of Bangladesh. The tour gets underway on Friday, November 19 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka. It’s just been over a week since Pakistan went down to Australia in the semi-final of the T20 World Cup.

Matthew Wade smashed Shaheen Shah Afridi for three sixes in a row to knock Pakistan out of the tournament. Looking back on the defeat at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, the Lahore-born Babar sounded a tad disappointed, but he also spoke about the importance of focussing on the future.

The whole team is confident, says Babar Azam

“The World Cup is in the past and we need to move on from it and move forward looking into the future keeping the momentum that we gathered,” Babar was quoted as saying ahead of the opening T20I, Cricbuzz reported.

“Certainly, it was disappointing to lose in the World Cup and the whole team got hurt. We have discussed our mistakes and the whole team is confident and we have full faith among us. I have tried not to break the momentum that we got from the World Cup and look, this is the time when we need to back our cricketers,” he stated.

Pakistan started the tournament with resounding wins over India and New Zealand. Thereafter, they rolled over Afghanistan, Namibia and Scotland to finish on top of the points table in Group 2. In fact, going into the semis, Azam and Co. were the only unbeaten team.

However, in the semi-final, their bowlers couldn’t step up, barring Shadab Khan, who picked up a four-wicket haul. Going into the Bangladesh series, Babar, however, said that he didn’t want the World Cup agony to hamper their progress.

“The cricketers are experienced enough and understand these things (losing in the World Cup semi-final) and now we have to move forward,” Azam added.

The Pakistan team has already reached Bangladesh and have started practising. Shoaib Malik and skipper Babar have also joined the squad. Moreover, the players have returned negative COVID-19 tests. After the three T20Is on November 19, 20 and 22, Pakistan will also play two Test matches in Chattogram and Dhaka.