Pakistan skipper Babar Azam went unsold in ‘The Hundred’ Men’s player draft early this month. The former World Number one T20I batter suffered the same feat last year as well. However, this time around, he and his T20I opening partner, Mohammad Rizwan went unsold. The fans of these players weren’t able to believe this particular development as they both are former number one T20I batters.
Meanwhile, England Test pacer, James Anderson has said that he would spend the entire budget on the Pakistan captain. The former added that the only thing that led to Babar going unsold is his speculated unavailability for the tournament. Anderson further added he also went unsold in the Indian T20 League player auction a few years back.
“I’ll pay double for him [Babar Azam]. I’ll spend the whole budget on Babar Azam. The only thing I can guess is that there might have been an availability issue, which is why he wasn’t picked,” Anderson said while speaking in BBC’s Tailender Podcast.
“I went into the ITL auction once and didn’t get picked up,” Anderson said.
In last year’s draft as well, Babar was not picked as the tournament clashed with Pakistan’s international commitments. Babar was listed at the reserve price of £125,000.
Only Babar Azam will decide if he wants to captain the side: Najam Sethi
Meanwhile, ahead of the recently-concluded T20I series against Afghanistan, it was speculated that Azam might be removed from the captaincy in future. The rumors started after the right-hander was rested for the series.
“There is no threat. Our established skipper Babar will remain the captain of our national squad until he himself decides whether he wants to leave captaincy of any one format or all three formats or he wants to remain the captain in all. It will totally be his call,” Najam Sethi said in a press conference on Monday.
