Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar made a big statement on the Pakistan cricket team's batting after the Green Shirts recorded the biggest chase in the ICC World Cup history against Sri Lanka at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad, on Tuesday.
In their chase, the Green Shirts met with early blows as they had lost their top-order batters, Imam-ul-Haq and Babar Azam, in just 7.1 overs and were 37-2 but the match-winning partnership between Mohammad Rizwan and the World Cup debutant, Abdullah Shafique, changed the fortunes of the struggling Pakistani side.
And now, Gavaskar, 74, believes that the batting display by Pakistan was a testament that they are no longer dependent on their captain Babar Azam.
He praised Pakistan's batters, especially Abdullah Shafique saying that he looked like a Test batter.
"When you are chasing 350 runs, it takes a lot. They also lost a couple of early wickets in the game. I think more than anything else, I mean, we have all known about what Rizwan can do. But Abdullah Shafique, he looked like a Test batter. The way he anchored the innings with Rizwan, it was great," Sunil Gavaskar said on Star Sports ahead of India vs Pakistan.
Gavaskar further added that the Green Shirts' performance last night would take the pressure off of Babar Azam as they are not dependent on him anymore.
"More than anything else, Pakistan would have realised that they do not have to depend on Babar. And if Babar fails, there are other batters who are there to score the runs. And I think that is such an important thing for Babar himself because the pressure will not be on him that he has to score all the time," Gavaskar concluded.
It must be noted that Pakistan will take on India on October 14 at Narendra Modi Stadium, a stadium that can gather as many as 132,000 spectators at a time and since the Pakistani journalists and fans have not been granted Indian visas yet, the Men in Green may be facing the home side with little to no support.
The arch-rivals have crossed paths seven times in the ICC World Cup and the Green Shirts' record isn't something they would like to talk about as they have lost seven out of seven matches against the Blues.
However, after recording wins against the Netherlands and Sri Lanka in the ongoing World Cup, Babar Azam and his men will be doing everything to end their losing streak against the arch-rivals in the mega event.
