After witnessing Babar Azam lose to an Adil Rashid “googly” in the T20 World Cup final, Shoaib Malik has asked the Pakistan captain to improve his googly.

Babar Azam’s T20 World Cup 2022 career came to a dismal end with only one fifty to his record. Although Babar did succeed in leading the Pakistani side into the tournament’s championship match, his batting was still in jeopardy. Adil Rashid, a spinner, dismissed Babar in the Sunday final after the Pakistani captain failed to read a “googly.” Shoaib Malik, a seasoned Pakistani cricketer, has now asked Babar to “learn how to play googly.”

Malik went into great detail in a video posted on A Sports about dealing with googlies. When it comes to preparing for such deliveries against a spinner, he provided a step-by-step explanation. “Babar needs to make changes in his batting. If your legs are planted, you still manage against pacers. But you can’t play a spinner with planted legs. For example, Babar thought Rashid bowled him leg spin and prepared to play in the covers but since it was a googly, he could not do anything but get out,” Malik said. When a batter is having trouble distinguishing between a leg-spin and a googly delivery, even Pakistan’s former captain Misbah-ul-Haq chimed in and emphasised the value of playing in front.

“If you are not able to read the bowl, never go to play this square off the wicket. Because once your bat goes out to play, it will land you in trouble. So if you are not able to understand it, just go and play straight. We have discussed this in Hasranga’s case as well but our batsmen play cut without reading the ball,” he said. Misbah continued by saying that Babar needs to practise the skill of sweeping spinner deliveries because doing so greatly reduces the threat. “I have said this many a times that you need to develop your sweep. Today, he could have played the ball sweeping but he doesn’t have this in his armoury,” he opined.