Pakistan fully capable of giving tough time to experienced England: Babar.

Byline: Mohammad Yaqoob

LAHORE -- Pakistan One-day and T20 captain Babar Azam on Thursday said that though hosts England have a little edge over Pakistan due to their experienced outfit and home ground advantage, Pakistan is fully capable of giving them a tough time in both Tests and the T20I series since the visitors have a talented squad comprising a good blend of senior and junior players..

'First and foremost, we are only focusing on the Test series which is a big challenge indeed. And then we will move on to the T20Is where we will try to win all three matches in order to to regain our top ranking in the shortest version of the game,' said Babar while talking to journalists through a video-link from Worcester where Pakistan team is going through the quarantine period of 14 days and have also started practice sessions under strict SOPs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

'Yes, after I took over as captain in the T20s, Pakistan's ranking slipped from top to fifth as we tested some new players against Sri Lanka and Australia,' admitted Babar. 'But now a fine team with a blend of youth and seniors is here in England and we will try to win all the three T20 games to regain our top ranking,''he said.

Babar said the local weather conditions and the use of Duke balls in England were in favour of the home team but Pakistan will try its best to repeat the performances it had produced on the last two tours to England in 2016 and 2018.

'Our main target is to set a good total on the scoreboard which will boost our bowlers and will help us to put pressure on England. For that purpose our batsmen have to perform really well and with confidence,' said Babar who has so far excelled in all the three formats of the game around the world. He has fantastic averages of 45.1 in Tests, 54.2 in ODIs and 50.7 in T20 cricket.

It may be mentioned here that Babar has played 26 Test matches and is just 150 runs away from completing 2000 runs.

The dashing right-hander further said that all the cricketers are in good shape and looking fit and are not facing too many problems in adjusting with the new conditions made mandatory due to Covid-19 situation.

To a question Babar said he valued those performance which benefited the team and not just his own career. 'I feel that any good individual performance which may not bring victory for the team is quite useless,' he said.

He observed that while some former Pakistani cricketers were not too hopeful about a good show from...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT