Babar facing turnaround challenge in England T20s

Babar facing turnaround challenge in England T20s

LONDON (AFP) - Pakistan captain Babar Azam will try to overcome a quick change in formats in the first of three Twenty20 internationals against England at Old Trafford on Friday.

Babar, the world s top-ranked T20 batsman, featured throughout during Pakistan s 1-0 loss to England in a three-Test series only completed on Tuesday -- where he was 63 not out at the finish of a drawn match in Southampton.

While none of England s Test side will feature on Friday, with the hosts maintaining separate red and white-ball squads in a Covid-19 hit season, Babar will be facing the very different demands of T20 cricket in Manchester.

"It s really difficult to come from red-ball to white-ball," Babar told reporters on Thursday.

"We only got one day for practice, yesterday we had a little bit with the white ball. It s all in the mindset, we hope that we will come up with a good performance."

Pakistan, however, do have white-ball specialists in their tour squad, with Babar adding: "But T20 specific players have been practising so the aim is to win the series. "We will not take England lightly. They have good white-ball players."

 Fab Five  

Babar s 69 during Pakistan s three-wicket defeat in the first Test at Old Trafford earlier this month was his fifth successive half-century at that level, with his previous five matches yielding four hundreds.

That innings prompted former England captain Nasser Hussain to proclaim Babar was now among the world s leading batsmen.

"They keep going on about the  Fab Four (India s Virat Kohli, Australia s Steve Smith, New Zealand s Kane Williamson and England s Joe Root) -- it s the  Fab Five  and Babar Azam is in that," Hussain said.

Babar, while "disappointed I didn t do what I set out to do in the Test series", where he scored 195 runs, with two fifties, at an impressive average of nearly 49, said he did not feel under a crushing weight of expectation given all the praise that had come his way.

"There s no pressure, I will just play my natural game," insisted Babar, who has scored 1,471 T20 international runs at an impressive average of 50.72, second only to Kohli s 50.80, with a top score of 97 not out in a 58-ball innings against the West Indies in 2018.

"I definitely have a game-plan, I want to spend more time at the crease so that my team will get more runs."

By contrast, England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan has long been a limited overs specialist, with the 33-year-old Irishman playing the last of his 16 Tests in 2012.

The pair were once team-mates in the Twenty20 Pakistan Super League, and England s 50-over World Cup winning captain was in no doubt of Babar s talent.

"He s a fantastic player, I played with him at Karachi Kings a couple of years ago," said Morgan, who averages nearly 31 from 89 Twenty20 internationals, with a highest score of 91 from 41 balls against New Zealand in 2019.

"He s a guy very early in his cricketing career but he has achieved quite a lot doing the simple things extremely well."