Pakistan vs New Zealand T20 World Cup 2022 Predicted Playing 11: Out-of-form Babar Azam will open with Mohammad Rizwan in last 4 game

While Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan are Pakistan’s number one opening pair, their below-par showing here has prompted experts to ask the team management to push the captain down the batting order.

Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. (Source: Twitter)

Pakistan team have extraordinarily managed to enter the semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2022 and will now face Kane Williamson’s New Zealand at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday (November 9). Skipper Babar Azam is going through a rough patch with the bat, scoring only 39 runs in five matches so far at a strike-rate far less than 100. However, batting coach Matthew Hayden asserted on the eve of the first semifinal that prolific opening duo of Babar and Mohammad Rizwan will continue to open the innings for Pakistan.

While Azam and Rizwan are Pakistan’s number one opening pair, their below-par showing here has prompted experts to ask the team management to push the captain down the batting order, but Hayden said their experience of soaking up the pressure in big-match situations makes them the ideal candidates to open the innings.

“Babar and Rizwan rightly are a number one combination. If I can take your minds way back to a different World Cup, that was the 2007 World Cup and Adam Gilchrist had a lean World Cup healed of that undefeated campaign for Australia,” said Hayden in the pre-match press conference in Sydney on Tuesday (November 8).

Team __ arrives in Sydney __#WeHaveWeWill | #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/LjIu1Hy1Mv — Pakistan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) November 7, 2022

“If you remember that last match against Sri Lanka, he went on to score an incredible hundred and realised his potential in that tournament and awakened the world once again to the fact that he was such a premium batsman in that format of the game. It’s always nice to have two players that have felt the pressure, and we all feel the pressure at any given times in our career. No different for the number one combination, no different for the number four ranked T20 player in Babar,” added Hayden.

There were suggestions that Mohammad Haris, who has been in sensational form since he was drafted into the side for the Super 12 game against South Africa could be promoted up the order against the Kiwis but that plan has been shot down for now.

Expressing his confidence in the batting abilities of the two top-order batters, Hayden, himself a legendary Australian opener, said ‘special players don’t often stay down for long’. “And don’t be surprised whatsoever if you don’t see some fireworks because very special players,” he said.

Pakistan vs New Zealand T20 World Cup 2022 Semifinal Predicted Playing 11

Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Haris, Shan Masood, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Nawaz, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Wasim, Naseem Shah

New Zealand: Devon Conway (wk), Finn Allen, Kane Williamson (c), Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson