All-rounder Shoaib Malik believes Azhar Ali has shown great improvements as captain from Zimbabwe to Sri Lanka series saying the right-handed batsman's captaincy is improving with every game he plays. Malik said "we should be a role model for our youngsters. The youngsters are very talented and give us a lot of respect. I am very happy to see the current atmosphere in the Pakistan team. Everyone wants to give their all," Pakpassion.net quoted him as saying.
Malik said he has told the team management that he is ready to bat in any position and will try to cope with it accordingly. "After so much cricket you should be able to understand the match situation regardless of what position you are batting in," he said.
Malik said with the experience of leagues and learning from his mistakes he has realised that one should have his mind open and look to help the team. "I admit that I was wrong before when I used to consider not having a defined role and position as the reason if I did not perform well. We should not indulge in a blame game," he said.
Malik said the team management has made the team work hard in all aspects and hard work pays off. "When you do badly you think and learn more, so even the bad times I remember fondly," he said. Malik said many great cricketers have left and others have replaced them. "So the repercussions of spot fixing were not as big from the aspect of losing players because there is a lot of talent in Pakistan," he said. Speaking about the Zimbabwe team's tour to Pakistan, Malik said when Zimbabwe came here and the national anthem was sung by the whole stadium it is hard to explain that feeling in words. "I think we won the Zimbabwe series convincingly. We were scoring 300+ regularly," he said.