Former Pakistan cricket team fast bowler Mohammad Amir took a sly dig at ex-teammate Mohammad Rizwan over the latter's comments on how breaking his opening partnership with Babar Azam has hurt the national side in T20Is. Following Pakistan's loss in the 4th T20I match against New Zealand, Rizwan said that the opening partnership with Saim Ayub has not worked out and the decision to not play Babar as an opener has proven to be costly. However, Amir took to social media to weigh in on the matter and without taking any name, he asked people to support youngsters and not judge them.
“Bhai jaan khud 4 saal maze kiye hain bachon k 4 matches k failure se khuch hurt ni hwa jab different cheezen try ki jati hain un ko time dena parta hai bara simple hai (Brother, you had fun for four years. No one is getting hurt if youngsters fail for four games. When you try new things, you need to give them time. It's that simple),” Aamir wrote on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).
The opening pair of Rizwan and Babar scored 2400 runs in 51 T20I innings but it was their strike rate that was seen as a matter of concern. As a result, after almost three years, team director Mohammad Hafeez reportedly decided to split them and promote Ayub as the opener with Rizwan.
However, the pair did not succeed in the New Zealand series with just 69 runs in four matches.
“You can say that it [breaking the opening pair] has hurt (nuksaan hua hai) Pakistan. I have told you before, you will see the effects eventually," Rizwan said at the post-match press conference.
“Regarding the opening pair, we have spoken to the management, captain and Hafeez bhai, and I can only say that Babar bhai has a big heart. We both agreed there's no issue, whatever they want to try, they should experiment."
“What's tough is, when you break things and the Pakistan public sees the one thing that was going well, but the management was trying to experiment,” he added.