Salman Butt, a former cricketer, has slammed the Pakistan cricket team and captain Babar Azam for their nasty tactics in the T20 World Cup 2021 warm-up matches.
Salman Butt, speaking on his YouTube channel, blasted Pakistan’s decision. To pitch their strongest XI in practice matches rather than risking out-of-form or under-prepared players. He claimed that by being defensive, the Pakistani squad is displaying their “insecurities” in public.
Salman Butt praised India’s strategy. Adding that despite having adequate preparation in the IPL, Virat Kohli’s team still sought to give everyone some game time and is now in a better position.
“India has utilized these warmup matches well… they’ve given game time to everyone despite the fact that they’ve all played the IPL. If they had not done this and had played with their playing XI, even then we could have argued that ‘They haven’t played together as a team so are doing it now. But even they didn’t do it. I don’t know what insecurity we have that ‘someone else should not make runs in that position or someone else should not get that opportunity. For God’s sake, you are the captain, you have to use your players, where will you do that?” Salman Butt remarked
“Can’t it happen that God forbid that you both [Babar and Rizwan] will get out in the first over? Then also someone will have to play against the new ball. See, Babar got out early here [against South Africa] na? Now, what is their mindset of going ahead? I don’t understand this strategy.” Salman Butt added
Pakistan’s two official warm-up matches were against the West Indies and South Africa.
Haidar Ali
These matches, he argued, were intended to put other batters like Haidar Ali and Mohammad Nawaz to the test. Butt believes that sticking with the same opening lineup will only hurt Pakistan’s prospects of advancing to the Super 12 level.
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