Former Pakistani all-rounder Azhar Mahmood has said that the national team management gave Babar Azam an unsuitable role during the recent T20 World Cup 2026 in India and Sri Lanka.
Mahmood, currently serving as the bowling coach for Peshawar Zalmi in PSL 11, stated that the right-hander was forced to bat at number four against his natural style.
He argued that the former captain, who has a strike rate of 128 in T20 internationals, is not far below opening batter Sahibzada Farhan, who has a strike rate of 136.
Azhar Mahmood said the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) should accept that it does not currently have batters capable of scoring at a strike rate of 190 or 200.
Mahmood said the Peshawar Zalmi skipper should instead be used to build the innings and create a platform for the more aggressive hitters to follow.
The strike rate of the 31-year-old batter during the 2026 T20 World Cup dropped to 112.34, the lowest among batters with over 500 runs in tournament history.
Farhan, by contrast, scored a record 383 runs in that tournament at a strike rate of 160.25, surpassing Indian batting great Virat Kohli on the list of most runs in a single edition.
In the ongoing Pakistan Super League 2026, the Lahore-born cricketer has scored 401 runs across seven innings at a strike rate of 143.72.
The stylish batter became the second-highest run-scorer in PSL 2026 following an unbeaten century of 100 runs off just 52 balls against Quetta Gladiators.
Babar became the first batter in T20 cricket history to score a fifty without facing a dot ball, and also the first cricketer to score a hundred with just one dot ball.
The Lahore-born cricketer scored 52 percent of his runs through singles, twos, and threes, the highest share in any 100-plus innings across franchise T20 leagues.
