Babar as wicketkeeper speculation shot down by Hesson, the former having never kept wicket in his cricket career.
Hesson dismisses Babar as wicketkeeper speculation.
Mike Hesson has denied rumours that he asked Babar Azam to think about becoming a wicketkeeper in an attempt to get back into Pakistan’s Twenty20 International team.
Babar, who was captain and a mainstay in the T20I team until recently, was reportedly advised by the new Pakistan coach that he required another ability to make him a more viable option at the top of the order.
Hesson was adamant that Pakistan did not consider Babar a viable wicketkeeping option, despite the fact that he had never held a wicket in his career. Babar is not included in the team that heads to Bangladesh for a rematch later this month, nor was he in Pakistan’s most recent Twenty20 International team for the home series against Bangladesh.
Under Salman Agha’s leadership, Pakistan hopes to revamp their T20 batting strategy, and these two series are the first under Hesson. However, the chosen team is spending a week in Karachi for a training camp that includes Babar and his long-time opening partner, Mohammad Rizwan. As a long-standing starting duo, Babar and Rizwan’s reputation has slowly declined over the past two years due to mounting criticism of their low strike rates, seeming lack of intent, and low risk-taking style. Rizwan is also not in the squad.
“Firstly, Babar Azam is not seen as a wicketkeeping option, no,” Hesson said. “Not sure where that came from, but I have heard that speculation. Babar is competing for one of the opening positions at the moment. But obviously, we have Fakhar [Zaman] and Saim [Ayub] in those two roles at the moment, so he’s competing for that.”
“No doubt strike rate is important in T20 cricket but you have to combine it with a volume of runs,” Hesson said. “There’s a good reason why our ranking in T20 cricket is as low as it is, because our strike rates from a batting point of view are not high enough. We certainly made some shifts in that last series to play a more expansive game of cricket and probably catch up with the rest of the world, as that is the way the modern game is.”