Former Pakistan Cricketer Shoaib Akhtar recently took a jibe at Babar Azam and called him out for his poor command over the English language. The 47-year-old also stated that the current Pakistan skipper is not a big brand.
However, former Pakistan skipper Salman Butt quashed Akhtar’s claims and stated that the veteran pacer called Babar out because of his communication skills and not because of his cricketing abilities.
“The very fact that we are talking about him proves that he’s a brand. You only talk about the person who is relevant. He will learn with time. There are so many players in Pakistan who learnt the language when they lived abroad.
I don’t know why he (Akhtar) needed to say things like that. We should support him. You don’t need to talk about these things on public platform. If you really want to see him improve, you should call him, meet him, and tell him in private,” Butt said.
“He (Babar) is a sensible person. If he doesn’t have a command on a secondary language, there is nothing bad about it. Many athletes speak in their mother tongue intentionally when they are at the top of the podium, and ask the translator to convey the message.
We should feel proud that we have ownership on our language. Yes, there is nothing bad in knowing another language. But Babar ko naa toh kisi draamey ka voiceover karna hai, naa hi TV pe khabrein padhni hain. (But neither does Babar have to give a voiceover for a drama series, nor does he have to read news on television),” he added.
