Pakistan’s star batter, Babar Azam has been struggling with his form for quite some time now. He is especially performing poorly in the Test format. However, Pakistan’s head coach in Test cricket, Jason Gillespie, has backed Azam to be back among the runs soon and provided his support to him.
He feels that he has got starts but hasn’t been able to convert them into big runs. However, Gillespie is very confident that Azam will soon covert his starts to big hundred as he is a very good player.
“Babar is a quality player, and he’s got a couple of starts. A bit like quite a few of our players, he hasn’t been able to convert starts. But Babar is a world-class player he’s very close, I feel it. I am really confident that we are going to see Babar scoring big runs very soon. He’s too good a player and looking forward to seeing him doing well,” Gillespie said.
Babar Azam has not scored a half-century in red-ball cricket, since 2022. He has not not passed the five-run mark for over 16 innings, consecutively. In the ongoing Test series against Bangladesh, Babar has struggled to find form and has just scored 64 runs across four innings.
Babar Azam has been facing tremendous criticism owing to poor form
Babar Azam has scored 64 runs in two Tests at an average of 16 (Image Credits: X)
Due to lack of runs, Babar Azam is seen struggling with his confidence. His feet aren’t moving and he is losing his wickets even to the deliveries that he shouldn’t be losing to. Azam has also faced a lot of criticism for his captaincy, earlier, and his inability to perform with the bat and as a captain in ICC tournaments.
He stepped down from all-format captaincy after the 2023 ODI World Cup but was reinstated as the limited-overs captain ahead of the T20 World Cup in 2024. However, Pakistan performed very poorly as they were knocked out of the group stage in the tournament. Pakistan fans will be hoping that Babar soon finds his form and starts scoring runs with the consistency that he has shown early in his career.