PERTH: His decision to play an extra paceman may have come for criticism but Pakistan skipper Babar Azam defended his ploy to play Mohammad Wasim Jr against Zimbabwe even as they suffered back-to-back defeats to stare at an early exit from the T20 World Cup.
Days after their heartbreaking loss to arch-rivals India, there was worse in store for the 2009 champions as they were shocked by Zimbabwe by one run to leave their campaign in tatters.
"To be honest, we are not up to the mark in all three departments. It's very hard as a team and as a captain," Babar said in the post-match interaction. Pakistan went on with an extra pacer in Wasim, a move that looked to have paid off initially as he emerged as their top-wickettaker (4/24) to restrict Zimbabwe to 130/8. But their batting looked out of depth and struggled to chase the paltry total, falling short by one run. I don't think so, because this pitch required fast bowlers, so we have that planning, so we have extra fast bowler," the Pakistan skipper said, defending their pace-heavy ploy.
"When me and Rizwan got out, then Shan (Masood) and Shadab (Khan) built a partnership. But after Shadab got out, we had a collapse, and we did not finish well," he added.
Winless after two matches, Pakistan will now face the Netherlands in a must-win match on Sunday and Babar vowed to come back strongly.
"We have two days, and we'll sit together and discuss the mistakes and then we'll come back strongly," he further added.