Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi were among biggest failures for Pakistan.
Former Pakistan all-rounder and captain Shahid Afridi has asked management to drop star players Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi after another defeat against India at the T20 World Cup 2026. It isn’t the first time former cricketers have demanded such drastic measures in the wake of an India drubbing.
In a Pakistani national television show, Afridi explained how the big names don’t perform when they actually need to, so it’s futile to carry them in the XI. He went on to suggest that Pakistan should draft young names from their next game against Namibia in the tournament to help them get some game time.
“If it were up to me to make a decision, I would bench Shaheen, Babar, and Shadab. I would play the new boys, give them a chance. I would give them confidence and a chance against Namibia. Because we’ve been watching these players for so long, they keep playing and playing, but where we expect them to perform well against this team, these senior players aren’t delivering.”
Despite getting ample chances, those big names, as Shahid Afridi pointed out, haven’t performed in crunch situations in recent years, which has been one of the biggest reasons behind their poor record against the Men in Blue. Even former batter Mohammad Yousuf didn’t hold back, bluntly declaring that the trio’s time in T20Is is up on his official X (formerly Twitter) account.
After winning the toss, Pakistan made a bright start by removing Abhishek Sharma in the first over on the back of a tactical masterstroke by Salman Ali Agha. However, Shaheen Afridi couldn’t maintain the same pressure, as he leaked as many as 31 runs at an economy rate of 15.50 in just two overs, even though he dismissed Axar Patel on the final delivery.
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His first set saw three boundaries by Ishan Kishan and Tilak Varma before two more by Shivam Dube and Rinku Singh in the next one. Meanwhile, Shadab Khan endured a game to forget, giving 17 runs in his only over and managing a sluggish 14 off 15 deliveries at a strike rate of 93.33.
The pitch suited spinners, particularly in the first innings, but the all-rounder bowled erratic lines and allowed batters to free their arms. Babar Azam again registered a low score against India, departing on just 5 in seven balls.
His shot selection was more surprising, as he went for a wild slogsweep across the line, which has clearly not worked at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, and saw his stumps being shattered. Excluding his 68* in 2021, Babar’s T20I scores against India read: 10, 14, 0, 13, & 5, returns that hardly live up to the hype surrounding the batter.
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