RAWALPINDI: Pakistan captain Babar Azam opened up after a frustrating fifth T20I defeat against New Zealand, which barred the men in green to claim the series victory.
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam picked Shadab Khan’s drop catch of Mark Chapman the turning point of the high-voltage clash between the two sides as the young batter went on to score a match-winning unbeaten century.
Chapman was breathing fire with his courageous knock and looked to smash one against Shaheen Shah Afridi in the 14th over but mistimed it.
Pakistan’s best fielder Shadab Khan managed to get under the ball as he ran quickly from wide long-on but ended up dropping a sitter. Chapman was batting at 67 at that point and went on to finish at an unbeaten 104.
His quickfire century powered New Zealand to a comfortable six-wicket victory over Pakistan in the fifth T20I and levelled the five-match series 2-2.
“The dropped catch obviously cost us the game,” said Babar at the post-match press conference.
“Shadab has given a lot of performances in the past. If his performance isn’t good in one series, that doesn’t make any difference to us. We will back him and he will perform again,” he added.
Pakistan’s captain also confessed that his side was 10 to 15 runs short as the home side could finish at 193/5 in their set of 20 overs, 16 short of the average first innings total of 209 at Pindi Cricket Stadium.
“I think the way we started, on these surfaces in Pindi you keep in mind around 180, 190. And I think the way Rizwan and Iftikhar were playing, I thought 200 was on the cards because the wicket gets even better in the second innings,” stated Babar.
“In the last three overs, Rizwan tried hard but couldn’t connect them. I think he has done very well in the past but yes, we can say that we should’ve done well in those two overs and could’ve scored ten more runs. But that doesn’t mean we lost only because of him, it happens sometimes when you’re thinking of a plan in your mind but cannot execute it,” he concluded.