Gary Kirsten wants to 'unlock' Babar by unburdening him

Newly-appointed Pakistan white-ball coach Gary Kirsten wants ODI and T20I skipper Babar Azam to feel unburdened and share batting responsibility with his teammates so that Pakistan thrive as a group, at no point relying on one individual to do the heavy lifting all the time. 

Since the start of 2022, Babar is one of two Pakistan batters to score more than 1,000 T20I runs and the general consensus is that the 29-year-old, who has captained Pakistan in 40 of the last 45 T20Is he’s played, takes too much load on his shoulders, trying to carry the side’s batting. 

There have also been fears that this need to ‘carry’ the batting has affected the batting of Babar, in particular the strike rate, negatively.

Kirsten, a World Cup-winning coach who has coached both India and South Africa in the past, wants Babar to play with a free mind so that his batting can be ‘unlocked’.

"It [dependence on Babar] is not fair on any player," Kirsten told Talksport, as reported by ESPNCricinfo.

“He shouldn't feel like he has to be contributing all the time to a team. I've been in touch with Babar. He's done remarkably well and carries a lot of the weight of the team on his shoulders. 

“What we will try to do as a coaching staff is to lift that a little bit and to realise he's just one of the one of a whole group of players and that he can free himself up to play with his natural talent.”

The third T20I against Ireland, which Pakistan won by six wickets, saw Babar score a brisk 75 off just 42 balls. Kirsten hoped to see similar free-flowing knocks from the bat of the Pakistan skipper.

"Hopefully we see a lot more of that [the Ireland innings] kind of knock from him. I think if we can unlock that freedom, and understand that there's a big group of guys that can make match-winning contribution, especially in T20 cricket, that'll take a lot of pressure off him."

Kirsten walks into a team environment that’s unsettled — one that has seen captains being changed twice in the span of six months and has also seen an overhaul in the coaching department. 

One of the things high on his priority list is fixing the team environment, and the 56-year-old asserted that thanks to his 20 years of experience, he knows exactly what sorts of divides happen in the dressing room of a team that’s losing more than it’s winning.

"I've been around the coaching circuit enough to know that, pretty much any team environment that's not winning, you will get factions. The fact is, it could be highlighted even more in certain cultures and environments,” Kirsten said.

Kirsten said that he’s now learnt to be ‘thick-skinned’ as a coach and revealed that it’s something he learnt from the late Bob Woolmer, who coached Pakistan in the mid-2000s.

“The one thing about being a coach of over 20 years now is that you get a little bit more thick-skinned. And that's the one thing I did learn from Bob [Woolmer], by the way,” Kirsten said.

"He had a really thick skin by the end of his coaching career. Because you're just trying to do as best a job you can, accepting the fact that when the team's not doing well, there's always going to be a whole bunch of criticism."

The former South Africa batter coached team India for three years - in which he led them to a 50-over World Cup title - and said that, during his time with the Indian side, he learnt that there are some battles coaches are ‘never’ going to win, referring to player power of seniors.

"I think my learnings over my three years with India was that there are some battles that you just absolutely are not going to win. And then you just focus on the ones that you can win, and hopefully, that's enough for the team to do really well.

"It's really important that you build relationships upwards. You need to work well with the people upstairs and within the confines of the board, and hopefully build a decent relationship so that they buy into your thinking as well."

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