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Pakistan skipper Babar Azam's dismissal for 38 off 45 balls against England in their final league game of the 2023 ODI World Cup at Kolkata's Eden Gardens on Saturday (November 11) spoke volumes about the kind of tournament he has had.
Chasing 338 runs to win, Pakistan needed their captain to convert the start that he had got. However, Babar pulled a deliver from Gus Atkinson straight into the hands of Adil Rashid at short mid-wicket. This wasn't the first time he was dismissed in this fashion and that itself points towards a potential weakness in his batting.
Here's a video of Babar Azam's dismissal:
Babar Azam and co. were already out of the race to the 2023 World Cup semifinal
Pakistan needed a mammoth 287-run win over England to overtake New Zealand in the fourth spot on the points table. However, as soon as Jos Buttler won the toss and opted to bat first, Babar and co. were out of the race with an improbable chasing scenario.
Despite having scored four half-centuries in the tournament, Babar failed to convert any of them into a big score and that's potentially one of the reasons why Pakistan will miss out on making it to the knockout stage once again.
Just 320 runs from nine games arguably doesn't live up to the standards that Babar had set for himself with his consistency. Only time will tell whether Pakistan will continue to show trust in his captaincy or whether he will step down.
England XI: Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Jos Buttler (c & wk), Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Gus Atkinson, Adil Rashid
Pakistan XI: Abdullah Shafique, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Agha Salman, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Haris Rauf
