Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has achieved unprecedented success and is already counted as one of the best batters of the modern era. The 27-year-old has played an important role in the recent surge of Pakistan cricket, especially in white-ball cricket. Babar, who is also the top-ranked batter in ODIs and T20Is, has grown leaps and bounds since making his debut in 2015. Former West Indies cricketer Ian Bishop feels that Babar with his current form, has “almost overtaken” former India captain Virat Kohli as the ultimate batter in the 50-over format.
“Babar Azam is on the road to greatness. I want to be clear when I say ‘on the road to…’, in the white-ball cricket at least, and certainly in fifty overs. I don’t use the term ‘great’ loosely. It has to be a bigger sample size to bestow greatness on a player, but his average, as we speak now, (is) on the cusp on 60 with 17 ODI hundreds. He has almost overtaken his next-door neighbour, the great Virat Kohli, in terms of the ultimate uber 50-over batter,” Bishop said during an interaction on cricwick.net.
Bishop, however, said that Babar’s need to improve his game in red-ball cricket, saying that his batting in Test cricket is a “work in progress”.
“His Test cricket is a work in progress. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken to Test cricket numbers a lot earlier. He’s starting to get better at it. Technically, he’s superb. In future, I’m hoping he will be mentioned in the same breath in Test cricket as the top 3-4 players,” he said.
So far, Babar has scored 4,442 runs in 89 ODIs, averaging 59.22. He has also scored 17 centuries and 19 fifties in the 50-over format.
Promoted
Meanwhile, Kohli has already etched his name as an all-time great.
The star batter has scored 12,311 runs in 260 ODIs at an average of 58.03. The 33-year-old has also registered 43 tons and 64 fifties in ODIs.
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