Separate Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan Opening Pair, Suggests Former Pakistan Coach Mickey Arthur

With them not having much experience in the middle-order, the bulk of the scoring responsibility comes on the trio, who haven't been at their effective best while batting first, as seen from Pakistan losing three matches while batting first post featuring in the T20 World Cup 2021. "I think they should (separate Babar and Rizwan). Fakhar hits the ball in different areas, it frustrates the bowlers a little bit. It is the different angles, you've got a left-hander and a right-hander. So, spread Babar and Rizwan and you put Fakhar Zaman back at the top," said Arthur on ESPNcricinfo's T20 Time Out show after the match ended.  Arthur believes Pakistan will continue to struggle if they continue with their same batting template. "In terms of blueprint, when I was with Pakistan, and we had a more successful time in T20 cricket, we used to set ourselves to get 160 batting first and then rely on our bowlers to squeeze. We used to build as best we can, and that was quite a good recipe for us."

"The difference between that team and the team now is that in the middle, we had Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik. In the middle now, they are a very young outfit, they don't have much experience, and when you get them three wickets down early, I think they are going to struggle." Arthur further remarked that India bringing Ravindra Jadeja at number four disrupted Pakistan's plans of completing the overs of left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz, who had taken out Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the middle overs. "The key for me was having a left-hander there in the middle because that meant they (Pakistan) couldn't bring (Mohammad) Nawaz back. So they had to hold Nawaz to the back-end. And that ultimately probably cost them." Afghanistan Cricket Fan ‘Kisses’ Hardik Pandya on TV Screen Celebrating India’s Victory Over Pakistan in Ind vs Pak Asia Cup 2022 Clash, Watch Viral Video

Arthur signed off by saying Azam could have used his spinners, Nawaz and Shadab Khan better in the match. "They should have taken pace off towards the back-end of the powerplay. Principally because they knew they had only 12 overs of pace with the side they had picked, they could have gone through certainly one over of Nawaz, or even one over of Shadab (Khan, the legspinner), because I know, having studied and set up against Rohit, he doesn't play leg spin particularly well in the powerplay. Or his strike rate to leg spin is a lot less. "So you could have bowled Shadab, you could have bowled Nawaz. Nawaz generally bowls in the powerplay for his franchise in the PSL anyway. That would have been a very good match-up to Virat and Rohit. Which would have delayed the overs of the genuine quicks to a little bit later in the game."