{"id":71557,"date":"2025-08-16T16:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T16:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/71557\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T16:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T16:34:08","slug":"former-pakistan-captain-says-babar-rizwan-no-longer-pivotal-highlights-current-key-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/71557\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Pakistan captain says Babar, Rizwan no longer pivotal, highlights current key players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                            <a style=\"color:black; text-decoration: none; font-size:13px !important\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaDgqvHGzzKbrfJ9LS2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n                                 JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL<br \/>\n                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Former Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez on Friday criticised the recent performances of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, saying that Salman Ali Agha is currently a more deserving key player for the national team.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on a local YouTube channel, Hafeez said key players are those who consistently win matches, and in the past year and a half to two years, Babar and Rizwan have failed to deliver match-winning performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCalling them key players would be wrong and unfair. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan are not Pakistan cricket\u2019s key players at the moment. Key players are those who win matches for Pakistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Hafeez added that players like Salman Ali Agha, Saim Ayub, and Hasan Nawaz have shown consistent performances and are the ones currently winning matches for Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>He also questioned the place of Babar and Rizwan in the team, stating, \u201cI think Babar and Rizwan need to be concerned about their positions in the team. They need to prove themselves as good players first; key players come later. Both were good in the past, but now they are not delivering results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hafeez further criticised Pakistan\u2019s pace duo Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi, urging them to be fully involved in matches to produce results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth need to be fully involved in the game, otherwise results won\u2019t come. The same goes for Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi, they are also not giving match-winning performances for Pakistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The former all-rounder emphasised that Pakistan cricket does not need big names but players who can contribute consistently over the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should focus on players who can contribute for the next 10\u201315 years. Our media criticises one or two players and hypes one or two others, which is wrong. We need to talk about those who are actually performing,\u201d Hafeez noted.<\/p>\n<p>He also criticised players for prioritising PR campaigns on social media over performances on the field and urged the PCB to take action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we want to improve Pakistan cricket, those in the AC rooms and those executing plans on the ground must address these issues promptly,\u201d Hafeez concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL Former Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez on Friday criticised the recent performances of Babar Azam&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[29233,36951,1721,36949,36954,34087,36952,36955,31954,36950,36953,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-71557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-babar-azam","9":"tag-babar-azam-criticism","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-mohammad-hafeez","12":"tag-mohammad-hafeez-pakistan-cricket","13":"tag-mohammad-rizwan","14":"tag-mohammad-rizwan-form","15":"tag-pakistan-cricket-new","16":"tag-saim-ayub","17":"tag-salman-ali-agha","18":"tag-salman-ali-agha-key-player","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}