Babar Azam not responsible for Karachi’s bad performance, says Rashid Latif

Former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif has backed skipper Babar Azam ahead of the Australia series and opined that he is not behind the dismal performances of Karachi Kings in the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) season seven.

In an exclusive interview with Cricket Pakistan, former Karachi Kings’ director said that the franchise needs to take the day of the HBL PSL Draft seriously and have to be more professional in their approach.

The 53-year-old formed the same opinion for Quetta Gladiators and urged them to hire professionals and run the franchise like a company.

“First thing is they need to take draft seriously. In my view, Karachi and Quetta, both were not professional on the day of Draft as preparation for this starts one month prior,” Latif said.

Latif emphasized having thorough study while picking up players and is hoping that Karachi will not repeat these mistakes next year.

“My strategy would have revolved around this. How many hitters for the powerplay, batters in middle-overs, wrist spinners, two bowlers who can bowl 140+.”

“Karachi had only Sharjeel in the top three otherwise there was no powerhitter. There were a lot of mistakes and they will learn out of this. Hopefully, they don’t do these mistakes again as Multan Sultans and Quetta Gladiators have done it in the past and have suffered.”

Meanwhile, Rashid stressed that captaining a national side and a franchise are two different things. He also refrained from questioning Babar’s captaincy as he had not a strengthened side.

“Captaining Pakistan team is a different thing as captain has the power of making a team. But in PSL, it is different. You have a coach, other heavyweights, owners. A captain can not argue much with them and have to play at any cause.”

“I won’t say anything on Babar’s captaincy as it was quite a weak team and it was evident on the day of the draft. Whether a captain is big in stature if there are injuries and other things. He can not succeed.”

Rashid said that he has full support for Babar and reminded people not to judge his captaincy based on PSL as he was named captain of ICC T20I and ODI teams of the year.

“A trend gets started and especially social media starts raising questions, comparing with other franchise captains. Yes, there will be the pressure of losing so many games but my support is with Babar. PCB doesn’t need to panic if the results are not good against Australia too and the things must carry smoothly.”

Rashid further added that Gladiators need to be broad-minded and must refrain from allowing the franchise to be run by known people.

“Quetta did tactical mistakes by not having enough bench strenghth while picking old players. They will have to hire people who can make tactical decisions. Moin Khan doesn’t have enough time, we all know he is busy running his academy and here you need people who can work a complete year.”

“They are not stepping out of their limit and cricket is now changed. In the initial seasons, the data was not involved that much and if Quetta, Karachi and a few other teams can’t come close to data, they will continue to stay behind.”