Pakistan selector adds twist to Babar Azam's omission from ODIs: ‘Sustained injury during T20 World Cup, inquiry orderd’

Not just Babar, Fakhar Zaman also faced an injury during the tournament, where Pakistan crashed out of the Super 8s stage, failing to make the semi-finals for the fourth ICC event in a row. However, during his media interaction, Aqib did not reveal the extent of Babar and Fakhar's injuries.

“Babar Azam faced an injury during the T20 World Cup. When he came back from Sri Lanka, our doctors have a look at him. His injury is preventing him from playing in the National T20. He wanted to play, but the injury is not letting him do so,” Javed told reporters on Saturday.

Ever since Babar was ignored for the ODI team, there has been a huge hue and cry in Pakistan. However, head coach Hesson and captain Shaheen Shah Afridi stated that the senior batter was rested, not dropped, as the management wanted to give youngsters a chance in the series against Bangladesh, which got underway earlier this week.

Javed also downplayed the 61-run loss against India in the group stages, saying Pakistan's record against the Men in Blue is already abysmal and several captains in the past have not been able to get the better of India.

“We won the Test series against England, which no one expected. In Australia, we won the ODI series after 27 years, and after that, we beat South Africa 3–0, something no one had done before. We also fought well in the Test series. In the 2025 Champions Trophy, there was an incident, but before that, the team’s performance was going fine,” said Javed.

“Even now, if you look at it, we have won series against South Africa, Australia and Sri Lanka. Not being able to beat India in the World Cup is not an excuse; the result there is 8–0, and even the world’s best captains have played from 1975 to 2026, so set that aside. In the Super 8 stage, one match was washed out by rain, and we lost one; nothing else happened. Against Sri Lanka, winning by that margin wasn’t achievable. We lost only one match. We were eliminated only on net run rate. Making it such a huge issue is too much. It’s a big issue, but not so big that our cricket is destroyed or that we can’t compete anywhere in the world,” he added.

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