Former Australian batting legend and current Pakistan batting consultant for T20 World Cup Mathew Hayden talked about a few batters from India who can give a tough time to Pakistani bowlers in the mega event.
Hayden talked about the leadership role that will come into play during the India-Pakistan match and for that, he gave the example of recently concluded IPL 2021 where both captains MS Dhoni and Eoin Morgan who had a rough form with the willow but still, their franchise manages to reach in the final of the cash-rich league.
“Their individual performances were not as good as they have previously done as per their statistical records but the way they led their troops and conducted themselves played an important part in their teams reaching the IPL final in UAE conditions,” Hayden said in a media interaction. I feel leadership will be key in the coming match as conditions in UAE leave very little margin for error and there are dogfight conditions out there.”
He added that skipper Babar Azam has to play an anchor role if Men in Green wants to put pressure against India.
“There will be additional pressure on him as captain and batsman because he will be targeted and everyone will be wanting to, like they say, put him in their pocket. Babar has command and presence and he needs to fulfill that role in a batting sense and captain”.
He also talked about Indian batters Kl Rahul and Rishabh Pant who according to him has grown leaps and bounds and they can pose big threat to Pakistan in the main event scheduled on October 24th 2021 in Dubai.
“More or less I have watched KL Rahul grow and he is a major threat to Pakistan. I have watched him grow up as a boy. I have seen his struggles and his dominance in shorter formats. I have seen someone like Rishabh Pant, his brash nature and beautiful vision for the game, how he has destroyed bowling attacks because he has got the opportunity because he sees it that way.”
“For an Australian obviously the Ashes and matches against England are tops but nothing matches the rivalry of these two teams.” Hayden said Pakistan have some wonderful assets that will perform on the given day.