Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria was all praise for Rohit Sharma-led India after the Men in Blue defeated the Kiwis by eight wickets in the second ODI in Raipur. At the same time, Kaneria lambasted Pakistan for not playing the same level of cricket as India. The former Pakistan cricketer also lashed out at captain Babar Azam for being selfish and playing for himself.
Kaneria said that Babar Azam never plays for the team’s cause and focuses on scoring his runs. "We heavily depend on Babar Azam in all three formats, and he only scores for himself. Babar Azam continues to score his own 50-60 runs and the team doesn’t benefit from that at all, and it’s just causing losses. Babar never scores for the team’s cause,” Kaneria said on his YouTube channel.
The former Pakistan leggie continued to criticize the Men in Green for not using home conditions to their advantage like India. "Did we (Pakistan) make any big score of note in the ODIs? Did anyone score double hundred? Was there any dominant performance? No. We need to realize all this and learn from other countries like India who are exploiting their conditions. But here we are afraid of getting exposed in our own conditions," Kaneria said.
“We don’t have a bowler of Shoaib Akhter’s calibre who threatens to take wickets all the time. We don’t have imposing openers like Saeed Anwar, Aamir Sohail, Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar, and Salman Butt. Our middle order used to be packed with the likes of Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq. We had a great all-rounder in Abdul Razzaq. Teams used to fear us in the ODIs, but it’s not the case anymore,” Kaneria added.
Notably, Pakistan lost the three-match ODI series against New Zealand 1-2 while India have taken an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the three-match series.