Pakistan captain Babar Azam has expressed his disappointment over the dropped catch of Mark Chapman by Shadab Khan in the fifth T20I against New Zealand. Azam believes the drop was the turning point of the match, as Chapman went on to score an unbeaten century and help New Zealand level the series 2-2.
The incident occurred in the 14th over when Chapman tried to hit Shaheen Afridi downtown but spliced it, sending the ball to Shadab who was running across from wide long-on. Unfortunately, the all-rounder dropped the easy catch, and Chapman, who was batting on 67 at that point, went on to score an unbeaten 104 off 57 balls.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Azam said, “The dropped catch obviously cost us the game.” However, he quickly came to Shadab’s defense and said that the team will continue to support him. “Shadab has given a lot of performances in the past. If his performance isn’t good in one series, that doesn’t make any difference to us. We will back him, and he will perform again,” he added.
Azam also defended wicketkeeper-batsman Rizwan, who failed to accelerate in the end and fell short of his century by two runs. Azam believed that the team had a good start, and they were thinking of scoring around 180 to 190 runs. However, Rizwan and Iftikhar were playing so well that they thought they could even score 200 runs. In the end, Rizwan tried hard but couldn’t connect with the ball, and the team fell short by ten runs.
Although disappointed with the result, Azam believes that the team can learn from their mistakes and improve in the next match. The five-match ODI series between the two teams will start on April 27 at Rawalpindi.
