Babar Azam has the potential to be Pakistan's best-ever ODI batsman

[MRSN]

I have never seen a Pakistani batsman dominating fast bowling like Baber. He bats with so much positive intent and his consistency has been remarkable. He is one of the only batsman we have who can make any team.

There is also class and grace about his batting that I have never seen before. Most of the batsmen we have produced are either slow, lack modern game and are inconsistent even if they have a modern game.

Baber is truly a gem of a batsman and I can say he can become Pakistan best ODI batsman in history.

 

[Slim]

I agree but only if he becomes less selfish.

Nice to see you back buddy. We dont call you the resident custodian of Akmal clan on PP for nothing.

 

[Mujtaba2900]

People who are labeling him Selfish really dont understand how Batsman's always goes with the flow .
In his century against Australia He Gave Strike To Sharjeel who was playing Well and hitting the ball .
And build His Innings when wickets were falling from the other side.
In 2nd odi againt England fakhar was in good touch So Played Run a ball and gave strike to fakhar as much as possible.
It was Really unfortunate That his glove Slipped And He got out.
In The 4th odi fakhar and imam Both were Gone and Haris Wasn't playing so Babar has to anchor the Innings And he did it Beautifully it was hafees Who Should have played faster because it wasn't his role to anchor at that stage he was supposed to Score Faster.
He Did Slow Down For His Century And It Perfectly Normal .
You Can See the Same Example Of Roy .He Scored 87 of 98 .
Even Root Who didn't get 50 in Last 9 games Slowed down for His 50.
I Have Seen Kohli Doing It .
He is Now Consistently Scoring Against Quality Oppositions With The SR of 100 and Average Excess of 50
What Else People Want from him

 

[saeed5646]

he can easily finish with most hundred in odis for pakistan .he is at 7th number 3 more hundred he will be at top 3

 

[Hawkeye]

I agree but only if he becomes less selfish.

Nice to see you back buddy. We dont call you the resident custodian of Akmal clan on PP for nothing.

Haha the custodian thing made me rofl.

He's right about Babar though.

 

[silentkiller187]

selfish? when these batsmen attack with a gung ho approach we label them brainless. This kid would be revered all around the world and covered in wool if he played for anyone else, hes the only batsmen we have in the whole country that can even think about breaking the KOHLI-SMITH-ROOT conglomerate.

 

[The_Odd_One]

Skills wise, he is right there at the top. Very good against fast bowlers, able to rotate strike consistently, plays beautiful cuts and drives. The only thing he severely lacks is power hitting. I am pretty sure if he can get this one thing done, he will become a match-winner.

Right now, he lacks impact but even then he will most probably end up as the greatest limited overs batsman for Pakistan statistically.

 

[Slim]

Haha the custodian thing made me rofl.

He's right about Babar though.

I dont want to curse the boy but he is top 5 in the world right now and can easily take the second spot with some impact-full performances. Needs to work on his test performances.

 

[Junaid_ahmed]

I wish a day will come & we find someone like anwar, anyaway babar will always remain as a contributor.

 

[Hasan123]

I agree . He can become Pakistanis greatest LO bat. I doubt he will ever be able to hit boundaries at will , so he should focus in improving his strike rotation. He at times plays too many dot balls.

 

[The Viper]

Him and Imam have a great chance of scoring the most hundreds for Pakistan.

 

[Green Patriot]

He has the potential,in terms of statistics,and anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

 

[Captain caveman]

Babar azam is a very classy player, reminds me alot of M. Yousuf. Babar can be up there with yousuf in the top tier of pakistani odi batsmen if he continues playing as he is. But the best odi player for Pak ever, without question, is one Mr. INZAMAM UL HAQ!

 

[Red Devil]

Babar is a class act. I just wish he could add more power and dynamism in his game. That would make him truly elite, up there with Kohli as a limited overs' batsman.

 

[moghul]

No question, the best batsman Pakistan has found probably after Inzi, even better than Younis. He is always under pressure and doesn't enjoy luxury of having 2-3 world class batsmen in the team like England, India and Australia have hence plays with responsibility and can;t be labelled as selfish.

 

[QalandarFan]

I feel like he would be even better if we opened with him in ODI's like we do in T20I's. Early on in his career he wasn't ready for it, but now he seems like a beast in the powerplay who can find the fence during that phase with ease. He's a master of piercing gaps in the inner ring. Just needs to work on his power game and hitting in the middle-death overs and yeah he'll easily not just be our best ODI batsman but can go on to become on of the best bats ever.

He also has potential to become one of our best test bats. Lot of people are not mentioning how good he can be in tests. However, the Test format is a much more complex form of the game and he's been moved up and down the order a lot in his 21 match career. However, let's not forget Virat Kohli even struggled early on in tests as did ABD who only averages in the mid 30's after his first 35 odd tests. So Babar certainly has the potential to go on and become on of our greatest bats ever produced.

 

[QalandarFan]

Him and Imam have a great chance of scoring the most hundreds for Pakistan.

Babar almost halfway there in 60 odd matches, and Imam has 6 in 20 odd. Both these guys will defintley break Saeed Anwar's record of 20 ODI centuries. Weather they become better batsman than Anwar in this format that's a question only time can answer but it will be very hard, Anwar was one of the best white balls players we ever produced.

 

[aukhan]

He does. He is the best we have and he should lead us after the World cup is over.

 

[Aaqibpeer]

I think Anwar and inzi would be the greatest odi batsmen Pakistan ever produced purely because they dominated attacks as soon as they got in and that too in an era of some of the best bowling attacks.
At the same time babar is the best Pakistan batsmen of modern era after just 60 odd games, which in itself speaks a lot about his potential. He will surely learn to hit big shots, we just need to be patient with him and he has shown some improvement in this regard from his early days as well

 

[Dr_Bassim]

Babar will be an ATG.

Imam will be a Pakistani great.

 

[Suhail Lone]

No question, the best batsman Pakistan has found probably after Inzi, even better than Younis. He is always under pressure and doesn't enjoy luxury of having 2-3 world class batsmen in the team like England, India and Australia have hence plays with responsibility and can;t be labelled as selfish.

This is one the best comment ,Pak fans need to understand that Babar has no luxury of players like Rohit ,Dhawan , Morgan,Warner ,Guptil like Kohli , Smith , Williamson ,Root have
Pakistan should have scored at least 380 390 in 4th odi when Babar got Out
It is actually a lower order which is making Babars record useless
Same condition was in 2nd odi
How can't u get 32 runs of 18 balls in modern cricket
Babar is doing his job ,it is actually the responsibility of Asif Ali ,Imad , Malik to finish the games on high
He is one the talented player around the world right now
Williamson ,Root, Smith , Kohli also play with same strike rate
but they have power hitters like Maxwell ,Dhoni ,Pandya ,Jadhav,etc etc
So it is very bad to criticize Babar
I m one of the biggest fan of Babar

 

[NauV]

No question, the best batsman Pakistan has found probably after Inzi, even better than Younis. He is always under pressure and doesn't enjoy luxury of having 2-3 world class batsmen in the team like England, India and Australia have hence plays with responsibility and can;t be labelled as selfish.

Very important to always look at things in context . . Great observation!

 

[BreadPakoda]

Very important to always look at things in context . . Great observation!

To be fair, he has Imam, Fakhar giving good starts. And then Haris, Malik, and Sarfaraz to follow. Not a bad line up.

India's line up starts with the openers and ends at Kohli.

 

[Energy]

If he doesn't get injured, he will most likely end up as the highest run getter for Pakistan.

With time, he will start to receive more and more criticism about taking lead, and I am not sure how will he respond to that. We have seen that both Azhar and Asad have failed miserably after Younis and Misbah left.

But if he's left to his own, under the shadow of more dominant batsmen, he will continue to accumulate runs at a fast pace.

 

[NauV]

To be fair, he has Imam, Fakhar giving good starts. And then Haris, Malik, and Sarfaraz to follow. Not a bad line up.

India's line up starts with the openers and ends at Kohli.

They are all similar players in terms of gears and how they bat . . the point is that we don't have players down the order who can really catapult the team to real high scores after the platform provided by the babar's and Imam's of the world . . We don't have buttler and stokes or David Miller or Hardik Pandya or Andre Russell or etc.

In the 3rd ODI, Babar got out in the 39th over . . a lot of criticism on his pacing from 80 to 100 and probably warranted . . but look at how much Pakistan scored in the last 5 to 7 overs . . we couldn't finish well and that makes the whole situation look much worse!

 

[MRSN]

They are all similar players in terms of gears and how they bat . . the point is that we don't have players down the order who can really catapult the team to real high scores after the platform provided by the babar's and Imam's of the world . . We don't have buttler and stokes or David Miller or Hardik Pandya or Andre Russell or etc.

In the 3rd ODI, Babar got out in the 39th over . . a lot of criticism on his pacing from 80 to 100 and probably warranted . . but look at how much Pakistan scored in the last 5 to 7 overs . . we couldn't finish well and that makes the whole situation look much worse!

True. He is vital and backbone of Pak batting. Fakher is a tulla and there is no one down the order who can play innings which can get 300+ score. Likes of Malik, Hafeez and Sarfraz who love spin bashing and surre der against any fast bowler will not get you to 300 totals..