Former Pakistan cricketer, Basit Ali has expressed confidence in Babar Azam’s batting in the coming future. He said that Babar Azam will score five centuries in the next five months and will surpass batters like Kane Williamson and Joe Root in Test cricket. However, Basit Ali has urged Babar Azam to forget about captaincy and focus solely on his batting.
“Babar Azam will score five centuries in the coming five months. Babar has the best chance to leave the top batters behind, whether it is Kane Williamson or Joe Root. It is a very easy chance. However, now that the pressure of captaincy is off from him, he should forget about the captaincy. He should remove the thought of captaincy from his mind and just focus on scoring runs,” Basit Ali said in his latest Youtube video.
Notably, Babar Azam has also not scored a single century since the Asia Cup 2023 opener against Nepal. His stats in high-pressure games against top sides have always been put under question.
The ODI World Cup 2023 in India was a disaster for Pakistan as they were knocked out of the group stage itself. Captain Azam faced a lot of criticism and had to relinquish the captaincy duties from all formats. However, ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024, he was reinstated as the captain of the limited overs side. Pakistan were knocked out of the group stage yet again after losing against India and the USA.
Babar Azam has been in poor form since last year
While Babar Azam captains the team in white ball format, Shan Masood has been appointed as the red-ball captain of Pakistan. The 29-year-old endured mediocre returns in the ODI World Cup 2023, scoring 320 runs during the whole tournament. He also disappointed the fans in the T20 World Cup 2024, where he scored just 122 runs.
Babar Azam is often compared to India’s star batter Virat Kohli. However, the former hasn’t been able to maintain the consistency needed to excel as a world class batter.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is slated to face Bangladesh in the upcoming two-match home Test series and it will be interesting to see how Babar fares with the bat. The first Test begins on 21st August 2024 at Rawalpindi stadium. Meanwhile, the second match is scheduled to be played from 30th August to 3rd September at National Stadium in Karachi.
