LAHORE: Pakistan’s white-ball cricket team’s newly-appointed head coach Aqib Javed addressed star batter Babar Azam’s place and inclusion in the T20I team of the country. 

The megastar batter has been suffering from a rough patch across all formats and had an unimpressive run against Australia in the recently concluded three-match T20I series. 

Babar could only score 47 runs at just an average of 15.66 and strike-rate of 142.42. 

Aqib while addressing the media in Lahore on Wednesday, was asked whether Babar would be considered for T20Is.

“Senior players like Babar and Rizwan have a value. They performed over the years for Pakistan,” he said.

Earlier, commenting on Babar’s woes in the aforementioned series, former cricketer Basit Ali had claimed that the third T20I against Australia was the batter’s last in the format, since Aqib — one of the most vocal critiques of star batter — had taken the reins of the white-ball side.

“As long as Aqib Javed is the head coach, this may be Babar Azam’s last T20 match,” Basit had said during a local TV programme.

“I am simply stating what is evident. You have a premium batsman averaging just 14 runs across three matches. What kind of batsman gets dismissed before the eighth over?” he had questioned.

However, Aqib in his address debunked Basit’s claim and highlighted Babar’s contributions to the team over the years and reiterated that “every person has its own opinion but our focus is not to target any individual”.

“Everyone saw Babar playing in the last three ODIs. I mean, look, when you become a coach or a selector, then it’s not about individual [preference]. Your goal is to improve Pakistan cricket,” the head coach added.

“Whatever efforts we put in did not favour any individual but Pakistan cricket as a whole. If you won the series against England it was won by Pakistan cricket,” Aqib said while addressing the media.

“So, our focus remains solely to try and improve the image and results of Pakistan cricket,” he concluded.