Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria says Pakistan didn’t look as dangerous as their arch-rival India in the ODIs and urged skipper Babar Azam to start scoring runs for the team’s cause.
“If you see this Indian team, they are full of match winners. But on the Pakistan side, we heavily depend on Babar Azam in all three formats, and he only scores for himself. Babar Azam continues to score his own 50-60 runs and the team doesn’t benefit from that at all, and it’s just causing losses. Babar never scores for the team’s cause,” Kaneria said on his YouTube channel.
“We don’t have a bowler of Shoaib Akhter’s calibre who threatens to take wickets all the time. We don’t have imposing openers like Saeed Anwar, Aamir Sohail, Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar, and Salman Butt. Our middle order used to be packed with the likes of Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq. We had a great all-rounder in Abdul Razzaq. Team used to fear us in the ODIs, but it’s not the case anymore,” he said.
Kaneria slammed the batting performance of the Babar-led side against New Zealand.
“Did we make any big score of note in the ODIs? Did anyone score double hundred? Was there any dominant performance? No. We need to realize all this and learn from other countries like India who are exploiting their conditions. But here we are afraid of getting exposed in our own conditions,” Kaneria said.
Former Pakistan leg-spinner also insisted that Pakistan must learn from India to exploit the home conditions.
“They have dominated the first two ODIs. Series won and now they have a chance to test their bench in the third ODI and give new players some chances. But in Pakistan it’s all about thinking about yourself,” he said.