With a solitary fifty to his name in the entire T20 World Cup 2022, Babar Azam's campaign ended on a disappointing note. While Babar did manage to lead the Pakistan team into the final of the tournament, from a personal perspective, his batting remained in the line of fire. It was spinner Adil Rashid who dismissed Babar in the final on Sunday after the Pakistan skipper failed to read a 'googly'. Now, veteran Pakistani cricketer, Shoaib Malik has requested Babar to learn 'how to play googly'.
In a video on A Sports, Malik went to the intricate details of facing googlies. He gave a step-by-step explanation when it comes to preparing for such deliveries against a spinner.
"Babar needs to make changes in his batting. If your legs are planted, you still manage against pacers. But you can't play a spinner with planted legs. For example, Babar thought Rashid bowled him leg spin and prepared to play in the covers but since it was a googly, he could not do anything but get out," Malik said.
Even Pakistan's former skipper Misbah-ul-Haq joined the discussion and stressed the importance of playing in front when a batter is struggling to read which delivery is a leg-spin and which is a googly.
"If you are not able to read the bowl, never go to play this square off the wicket. Because once your bat goes out to play, it will land you in trouble. So if you are not able to understand it, just go and play straight. We have discussed this in Hasranga's case as well but our batsmen play cut without reading the ball," he said.
Misbah further said that Babar needs to work on the art of sweeping deliveries from spinners as that helps in negating the threat to a large extent.
"I have said this many a times that you need to develop your sweep. Today, he could have played the ball sweeping but he doesn't have this in his armoury," he opined.