Pakistan captain Babar Azam has urged his reshaped side to play without fear in the third and final Test against England, insisting there is little left to lose after a dramatic mid-series overhaul by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).Pakistan trail 0-2 after heavy defeats at Headingley and Lord’s, with the PCB responding by releasing seven players from the touring squad and removing head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and assistant Umar Gul. Five players without Test experience have been brought into the squad, while Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke have taken charge for the Edgbaston Test.With Pakistan already out of contention for the series, Babar believes the upheaval can instead give the newcomers a chance to make an impact.
‘We should play freely’
“The series is lost but we have nothing to lose,” Babar said on the eve of the Test. “We should play freely and believe in ourselves as a team.”Babar revealed that the sweeping changes came as a surprise to him, with the captain learning about the PCB’s decisions only after they had been announced.“It was news to me,” he said. “I found out after.“The PCB decided it, so they will be able to explain better. The PCB’s decision must have been taken after some thought process. It’s better if you ask them why.”The captain, however, said the new-look squad should embrace the opportunity rather than dwell on the turmoil surrounding the side.“We’ve practised a couple of days and explained things to the new boys. Any young player who comes in is excited, and that excitement is visible. I believe that will be visible in the match, too,” he added.Babar also accepted that Pakistan had failed to deliver across the first two Tests, while defending the thinking behind the selections that were made.“We didn’t play well in all three facets as a team,” he said. “And when you don’t get results, then you’ll get plenty of criticism from outside. But we did what we thought was best at the time.”He added: “The way we read the pitch and conditions, the XIs we went with were what we thought was best at the time. But we did not get the results or performance we expected of ourselves.”Babar missed the innings defeat at Headingley with a finger injury before returning at Lord’s, where he scored only eight and six as Pakistan suffered a 194-run loss. He called on the senior players to set the tone in Birmingham.“I firmly believe you need to grab opportunities and perform in difficult conditions,” Babar said. “That’s why we play cricket, because we have to perform and dominate in difficult conditions. We need to forget about past failures and shift focus to the future,” he said.
Babar’s comments on the shake-up
The Pakistan captain’s revelation that the squad overhaul was “news to me” added another layer to the crisis engulfing the side. The PCB released Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Agha, Ali Usman, Aamer Jamal, Awais Zafar and Khurram Shahzad from the squad following the Lord’s defeat.Babar, though, said the board would have to explain the reasoning behind the decisions, while he would focus on leading the players available to him.The PCB has also confirmed an internal disciplinary inquiry into reports concerning “discipline and conduct”, adding further uncertainty around the team ahead of the final Test.England captain Joe Root, meanwhile, rejected the suggestion that Pakistan had lacked fight during the series.“We’ve found Pakistan a challenge,” Root said. “I think that’s a bit disrespectful to both Pakistan as a team and to us as a team.“I don’t think we’ve allowed them to get into games because of how well we’ve played and how quickly we’ve read the situations and the surfaces that we’ve had.”