Saqlain Mushtaq defend Pakistani team after losing Asia Cup 2022

Saqlain Mushtaq defend Pakistani team after losing Asia Cup 2022

Pakistan lost to Sri Lanka in the final of Asia Cup 2022 in Dubai on Sunday

 

Saqlain Mushtaq defend Pakistan team after Asia Cup 2022 defeat by Sri Lanka

After the defeat in the Asia Cup 2022 final, national team coach Saqlain Mushtaq defended the team's style of playing in T20Is and rejected the reservations raised on captain Babar Azam's performance and said that he did not find any fault in the batting of opener Muhammad Rizwan.

According to the report of foreign news agencies, national team coach Saqlain Mushtaq is not worried about Rizwan's slow batting rate of 117.57 runs per hundred balls in the shortest format, while Indian batsman Virat Kohli scored 147.59 in his five innings. Scored 276 runs for India at a fast pace.

The national team failed to chase down 171 runs to beat Sri Lanka while their 23-run defeat ended the winning streak of teams batting second in Dubai.

Mohammad Rizwan scored 55 runs in 49 balls and scored the highest runs in the tournament with 281 runs in 6 innings of the tournament.

Saqlain Mushtaq said that 'everyone has their own style of playing cricket.

Saqlain Mushtaq said that we did it all with our style of play and the things that were left will be worked on, instead of adopting the style of play of other national teams.

Babar Azam, recognized as a standout scorer for the team before the tournament, scored 68 runs in 6 matches, including a single-match highest of 30, but Saqlain Mushtaq expressed the opener's lack of form.

The national team coach said that I have said before that only a keen observer of cricket can understand that the manner in which they got out was unfortunate.

Commenting on Babar Azam, he said that the way he played, his work style is no longer debated, he is a world class player and may Allah protect him from evil eyes.

Saqlain Mushtaq said, "If you look at the rankings, he is at the top in T20 Internationals and ODIs. It's just unfortunate that he got out like that because the way he's been training and playing. Amazingly, their style of work is different.

The 27-year-old Babar Azam, who scored 754 runs for 2 losses in 80 T20 Internationals, recently lost his top spot in the ICC T20 rankings to fellow opener Mohammad Rizwan.

Babar Azam's last outing of the tournament was at the side with a good catch at short fine leg and fell victim to fast bowler Pramod Madhushan, who took 4 wickets.

Saqlain Mushtaq also rejected suggestions of a left-right opening combination of Fakhar Zaman with either Babar Azam or Mohammad Rizwan.

"If you keep changing positions, it shows that you trust them, you have to give them time, and it's not good to keep changing too much, which creates the wrong impression," he said.

Saqlain Mushtaq also lauded champions Sri Lanka for their excellent performance in the finals, which had earlier defeated Pakistan, India and Afghanistan in the Super Four stage.

The national team coach added that Sri Lanka batted second and then batted first against us and became champions so they deserved the win well.

"We played good cricket in the first 9 overs and after that they played around 31 overs and dominated us in all aspects including batting, bowling and fielding," he said.