New Zealand thrashed Pakistan by 45 runs on Wednesday in the third T20I in Dunedin. Chasing 225 runs, Pakistan kept losing wickets at regular intervals. While the side’s talisman, Babar Azam, piled up his third consecutive half-century of the series, he could not receive support from the other end for the visitors to have a chance.

With the defeat, Pakistan lost the five-match series; however, Babar has had a productive series after a barren Test series against Australia.”I had said it earlier as well that Babar was not out of form. We cannot judge him on the basis of a few innings,” skipper Shaheen Shah Afridi lauded the former skipper.

In three games, Babar has made 181 runs at an average of 60.33 in the current T20I series compared to 126 runs from six innings he could manage at an average of 21 in Australia. “He has played three fine innings in three matches in the series,” said Shaheen after the game.

Babar also had an average World Cup with the bat. However, much of the criticism directed towards him at the time came for his captaincy. “Babar had not improved as a captain. If you see Saifi bhai (Sarfaraz Khan), he kept improving day by day. We won the Champions Trophy under his leadership and became World No. 1 in the T20Is,” former fast bowler Junaid Khan said recently on Nadir Shah’s podcast.

After the World Cup, Babar penned a heartfelt message on the X (formerly known as Twitter) announcing he would step down from captaincy. Shan Masood and Shaheen Shah Afridi were appointed as the captain of Test and T20Is, respectively.

However, despite the change in the leadership, there seems to be no improvement in the side’s performance. In the Test series against Australia, though there were times when The Men in Green looked competitive, they lost it 3-0.

In New Zealand, too, three games into the series, they have already handed the trophy to the hosts with tame performances in all departments and are now fighting to avoid getting whitewashed.