'Credit goes to our skipper': Pakistan pacer Haris Rauf backs Babar Azam amid questions on his captaincy

Babar Azam is among the top-five batters across formats in ICC rankings. He won the ICC Player of the Year award last month. While he continues to make rapid strides as a batter, questions have been raised on his captaincy in the recent past.

In the recent past, Pakistan have lost home Tests versus Australia, England and somehow managed a drawn series versus New Zealand. They also lost T20Is to the Aussies and Moeen Ali-led England in their own backyard last year, failed to win the Asia Cup 2022 final and 2022 T20 World Cup summit clash under Babar. Even in the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2023 edition, Babar's Peshawar Zalmi are at the fourth spot, with three wins and equal number of losses from six games.

Thus, many former cricketers and experts of the game have raised fingers on Babar's captaincy. Nonetheless, he continues to enjoy full support of his teammates. After Md Rizwan, Shaheen Afridi, Shadab Khan, Shan Masood, Haris Rauf has now joined the bandwagon and praised Babar's leadership skills.

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“I strongly believe that the improvement in my performance is all because of Babar Azam. We played really good and exciting cricket in the last two years. In this period, we emerged as a good unit, especially in white-ball cricket, and the credit goes to our skipper Babar Azam, who trusted the abilities of players, which ultimately gave us the confidence,” Rauf toldDawn.

Rauf was part of Pakistan's Asia Cup and T20 WC campaigns. He has represented the Asian giants in one Tests, 18 ODIs and 57 T20Is. He is currently part of the Shaheen Afridi-led Lahore Qalandars in PSL 2023.

Earlier, Masood also made a big claim in support of Babar. While speaking with a local TV channel, as reported by Cricket Pakistan, the left-handed batter said, "Hum sab Babar Azam ke behind hai. Jis tarike se koi bhi aapka captain hota hai, jab Saifi bhai thai, tb bhi hum jaan dene ko taiyaar thai, ab jab Babar Azam hai, tb bhi hum jaan dene ko taiyaar hai. Leader first. Aur hum sabka common goal Pakistan hai."

Bahut saari hum khabre padhte hai, cheeje dekhte hai jo team ko idhar se udhar karne ki koshish karti hai, lekin personally, kisi ko kisi k saath koi vo nahi hai. Hum Pakistan k liye khelne aaye hai, ye bahut badi privilige hai. Hum sab uske saath hai (We were ready to give our lives when Sarfaraz Ahmed was our captain, and now we are ready to give our lives for Babar Azam. We watch a lot of news on criticism of the team, but we don't get bothered by it as our mutual goal is to play for our country), Masood stated.