Babar Azam wants to emulate Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli as captain
Azam took over the captaincy from Sarfaraz Ahmed, who was removed from his T20I and Test leadership roles, earlier this month and was subsequently dropped from the upcoming tour to Australia.
The 25-year-old was handed the vice-captaincy duties for the home T20I series against Sri Lanka, where the hosts lost each of the three games, played in Lahore. Azam too failed with the bat, contributing with scores of just 13, 3 and 27. However, the No.1 batsman in theMRF Tyres ICC Men's T20I Player Rankings admitted that it wasn't the vice-captaincy that affected his individual performance.
"People judged in three matches [against Sri Lanka] that my performance suffered because I was vice-captain," Azam said of Friday, 25 October. "That's not how it works. In the game of cricket, you have ups and downs, and that was a poor series for us, no question. I give 120% for the team in every single match, and I don't see why there would be any added pressure on me just because I'm the captain. I'll continue to play as I always have, and I'm sure the performances will come.
"Moreover, I'm not just thinking I'll be happy to play regardless of the results. I'm looking to get a performance out of my team, as well as my individual performances. I look at current captains like Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli, and how well they manage their own form along with bringing results to the team. I'll try to emulate them," he added.
Azam has made 33 T20I appearances, scoring 1,290 runs at an average of 49.61
The series against Australia in their backyard would be a challenging one for Pakistan, but Azam, who had aggregated 286 runs from five ODIs during the previous tour in 2016-17, takes confidence from his past experiences and looks forward to the new role and the series.
"Every tour is tough and Australia is always a challenging place because of the extra bounce, but we will go for wins as we always do," he said. "I have toured Australia as skipper of Pakistan Under-19 (2012) and with the Pakistan team three years ago, so I have experience of those conditions."
Pakistan will play three T20Is against Australia on 3, 5 and 8 November, followed by two Tests later that month.