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Former Australian legendary batter Matthew Hayden worked closely with Babar Azam when he was a part of the backroom staff with the Pakistan team for their previous two T20 World Cup campaigns.
Hayden was gutted to see Babar step down from the captaincy as he felt the star batter had the leadership traits needed to take Pakistan cricket forward. He also shed light on how well Babar performed as a batter when he was the captain of the team.
Speaking to ESPNCricinfo, here's what Matthew Hayden had to say about Babar Azam:
"Whoever was doing the numbers was clearly not looking at them when it came to Babar's performances as non-captain and captain. Because he had better numbers as a captain. We are talking about an average of 50 and more. So he was a natural leader. I think they have potentially shot the gun a little bit early in terms of his leadership capabilities. I would have liked to see him get a little more time."
There are a lot of challenges in Pakistan setup: Matthew Hayden
Matthew Hayden also claimed that Pakistan's failure to qualify for the 20223 World Cup semifinals didn't have a lot to do with their leadership problem. He spoke about the injury woes in the team and also the loss of form of crucial players having an impact on the overall result.
On this, Hayden stated:
"Firstly, they didn't have Naseem (Shah). I believe they had some concerns over their world-class left-arm pacer. We watched Shaheen closely during the Asia Cup and he looked a bit underdone. Fakhar Zaman didn't really arrive in the tournament and then when he did, it was probably a bit too late for Pakistan. Nawaz and Shadab were finding it very difficult to retain their spot in 2023, which they didn't in the World Cup. So there were a lot of challenges in the setup itself."
Pakistan have already announced a new era in their leadership with Shaheen Afridi now leading the T20I team and Shan Masood captaining the Test team.
