“Listen, these are the numbers” - Faf du Plessis shares valuable advice for struggling Babar Azam

Former South African captain and analyst Faf du Plessis has a valuable piece of advice for the under-performing Babar Azam during the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2026, as Pakistan suffered a two-wicket defeat to England in their Super8 clash.

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Notably, Babar managed to score only 91 runs from four innings at an average of 22.75 and a strike rate of 112.34 in the ongoing showpiece event, with the highest score of 46 against the United States of America.

Speaking exclusively to ESPNcricinfo, Faf reckoned that Pakistan head coach Mike Hesson and the No.4 batter Babar should have an honest conversation and make the necessary changes accordingly. 

"It starts with honesty. That's the groundwork of any conversation that happens. Once you're honest in your conversation as a coach, everything flows from that; whereas if you are hopping around and not telling the truth as a coach or a captain, it leads to holes a player can jump into. So the nature of the conversation is always really important. For a coach, it's like, 'Listen, these are the numbers. The numbers are suggesting this ... Once the stats are in front of a player, it's pretty difficult to go 'I'm not agreeing with you.'," Faf du Plessis said on ESPNcricinfo's TimeOut show.

Furthermore, the former captain, while citing his own example, has asserted that Babar Azam is currently caught in two minds while being in the middle, adding that he needs to accept his batting flaws and be able to work on correcting them.

"Growth happens when you're uncomfortable. The challenge with that is that what you then go through is uncomfortable. Because now you're doing something for the first time that you've never done in your entire career. I had to do that against spin. But it's very easy on the net because there's no consequence. I went to the Hundred, tried to replicate what I did in the nets, and failed. And the guy on my shoulder said, 'Why are you doing this, you're successful?' But the other guy goes 'stick with it'," he added.

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