Okay time to respond.
in Tests i agree babar has been disappointing. He had a couple of good tours/ innings against Sa in Sa, nz in nz, a 100 and 90 in Aus (although he failed in the other 2 Aus tours) and hes also been good in england. He has been decent in these sena countries against full strength teams but nothing of note or substance. As for in odis:
Pak vs Eng 2015: 46 avg 93 sr
Pak vs Nz 2016: 72.5 avg 95 sr
Pak vs Eng 2016: 24 avg 85 sr
Pak vs Aus 2017: 56.4 avg 82 sr
Ct 2017: 44 avg 75 sr
Pak vs Nz 2018 : 6 avg 45 sr
2018 asia cup : 32 avg 71 sr
Pak vs nz 2019: 46 avg 91 sr
Pak vs Sa 2019: 49 avg 83 sr
Pak vs eng 2019: 55 avg 100 sr
CwC 2019: 67.7 avg 88 sr
Pak vs sa 2021/2021: 76 avg 104 sr
Pak vs nz 2023 first tour : 50 avg 72 sr
2023 asia cup: 20 something avg if u filter out nepal innings
Cwc 2023: 40 avg83 sr
Pak vs Aus 2024: 52 avg 80 sr.
These are all his series against full strength teams and in tournaments. He failed in eng 2016, nz 2018 and both the asia cups. He had a brilliant 2019 wc but a mediocre 2023 one. Other than that he has been great.
Players from the past may not have the social media hype but they also dont have the social media criticism and bashing after every bad performance. They dont get scrutinized for the many bad series and innings they played because people only remember them for that one innings they watched in their childhood in which they were a beast.
Amir sohail in odis scored only 330 runs against Aus in 16 innings and 320 runs against Eng in 12 innings both coming at strike rates of 50 in an era when 70 sr was the norm. 300 runs in Nz in 13 innings at an avg of 23. He also avged 25 against the WI.
In tests Amir fared a lot better however he was a complete failure in Sa failing to break even the 100 runs mark in 7 innings. He did great in Aus Eng and wi(at home) ill give him that.
Ijaz ahmed in ODIS Avged 19! after 33! innings in Austrailia. 19 after 33 innings. If he played today he would be called a bangladesh basher because he massively statpadded in bangladesh and on home soil. He was great at playing spin tho, dominated India and srilanka but woeful against pace. failed against Aus Wi Nz. If u look at his performance overseas then he avged 16 in Wi, 20 in nz, 26 in Aus, 30 in Eng Sa.
In tests Ijaz scored 56 runs against India in 7 innings( ig he was a fan of bobby). He also was a complete failure against and in Sa. Other than that he was good certainly better than Babar however Babar pips him based on odi exploits.
As all format batters currently Babar is only behind Miandad Inzi Yousuf Younis and maybe Saeed Anwar. If you want to add zaheer to this list, i dont mind but i feel like he didnt have enough longetivity. In Odis Babar is only behind Miandad Inzi and might overtake them by the end of his career. In tests he might break into the top 5 if he has a good second half to his test career.
So ^^ You didn't mention it in this comment but in your previous comment you talked about averages. So this is the first part I disagree with
Averages
I disagree that averages didn't change much between eras. For example very batters in the previous era use to avg 40 and above in odi due to the old PP rules and the one ball rule.
How many batters averaged 40 and above? Sachin, Pointing, Bevan, De villers? And a few more? Even gilly avg 35 yet everyone agrees he'd have similar or even superior numbers to both Warner and Travis Head had he played in their era.
Players like ijaz are an era before that. In their era 40 was a rarity. Viv, Zaheer, Miandad and a few others use to average it and they were understandably the best batters in that era.
In this modern era almoat everyone averages 40+ the ones who don't are considered poor batters whereas in the past it was the norm. I believe even bavuma and Imam il haq avg 40+ but we both know neither of these are close to the likes of gilchrist.
Odi rules became much much easier for batters in this era. Heck reverse swing at the death is now pretty much non existent and the first 10 overs are very easy for openers to exploit due to only 2 players being allowed in the outer ring.
Now about Ijaz Ahmed.
Ijaz Ahmed for his era was a fantastic Odi no 3 for Pakistan. Its a shame that Australia nuked his avg as he was very poor agaonst them in odi's however Australia and wi were the 2 best bowling teams in his era.
Against England he avg 38 with a 83 SR and this was back when most batters were avg 32 to 35 with a 60 to 70 sr.
Then against India he avg 35 with a 79 SR once again impressive. His 139 of 87 balls in Lahore was ahead of its time. Such innings are common now days in odi but in that era it was unheard of, something people who were born in that era and watched the game ball by ball like my brother
@Hitman can testify to.
Yes don't get me wrong Indian bowling attack was rubbish in that era but that bowling attack is still 100x superior to Nepal's bowling attack, furthermore the pitch that Babar played on was curated to have zero spin which made Nepal's only bowler Lamichane useless. The lahore pitch was far far more spin friendly and seek friendly in Ijaz's era, granted it was still a road pitch.
Then against sa and srilanka he avg 39 with an sr of 91 and 85.
The only teams Ijaz was poor against were NZ, Wi and Aus and wi and aus were wrecking havoc on every team and every player in that era. New Zealand is the only team for which he has zero excuse on.
Overall Ijaz ahmed really averages around 39 with an sr of 85 which is phenomenal for that era, infact it's arguably better then Inzi's own stats deapite inzi coming slightly after.
Aus and wI is what hampered ijaz down and put his stats at 32 but I can't recall any team dominating aus and wi in said era.
Babar
Now when it comes to Babar, the biggest problem here is that bi laterals arent taken seriously in this era as compared to the old era.
for example babar avg 68 against Aus in aus in odi, Sachin averages 35 however it's clear as day Sachin is far superior to Babar as a batter and Sachin had to deal with the likes of Mcgrath who kept owning him while Babar doesn't have to deal qith such an attack. Spencer Johnson is not as intimidating as Mcgrath.
Babar averages 31 against India and that includes 2018 asia cup where he India played their B string. Am avg of 31 in this era against India essentially means that Bobby is a shehzad/ Umar akmal level batter when faced with India. Infact if it wasn't for his ct performance his avg against India would be sitting at 25 showing he clearly isn't comfortable with the likes of kuldeep, Bumrah and pandya who frequently dispose of him. Theirs a reason why his 2018 asia cup avg is poor in the stats you've mentioned.
Similarly most of the stats you've mentioned don't paint the true picture for Bobby.
For example wc 2023
Babar was awful this cup. With the exception of the final which was a digfficult pitch to play on, Every pitch was a road and every team was smacking hundreds left and right. His stat sheets may showcase a 40 avg and 83 sr but in the context of the cup where qdk smacked 4 centuries, Rachin and kohli smacked 3, and many other batters performed, its a poor performance.
Kohli is avg 95 in that cup, Rohit was nothing more then a pp basher yet he's avg 53, Quinton is avg 60, rachin 64, Darly Mitchell 69.
In that cup moat batters avg 50 to 70 on those road pitches. Avg of 40 in comparison was poor considering Babar didn't score any centuries, and even his 50's were mellow and not that good.
Then we Have ct 2017
HERE are Babar's scores 8 of 12 vs India
31 of 51 not out ve SA
10 of 18 vs sri lanka
38 of 45 not out vs England
46 of 52 vs India.
^^ None of these are great performances. And remember avg and sr gets inflated if a player goes not out. I remember ct and one of the biggest complaints about ct was that Babar went missing in the entire tournament and it wasn't until 2019 wc where his century gave critics a bit of hope.
Similarly I wouldn't take England performance at face value either. England during 2016-2019 were cultivating seaming pitches that didn't aid spin as only Morgan and Root would play spin well, rest were bunnies, the likes of roy and bairstow were pace basher.
Even Imam ul haq hit a 150 against England on such tracks which England causally chased down in 44 overs.
England during this time period were cultivating such pitches because they knew that they were the most explosive batting unit on the planet and that they could out bat the oppositions. It's why they crushed pakistan in said series cause 300 scores posted by pakistan weren't enough to stop England 450 onslaught.
Everyone performed in that series.
It's why England got exposed against NZ in the final cause NZ understood the conditons and prevented English batters from unleashing. They got very lucky that stokes hit a one hit wonder + the deflection and that stupid Super over rule.
Even pak vs Aus. His avg is high because of that century but pakistan lost and most people critised Babar?
Misbah avg 44 and 74 sr, and has similar numbers to Bevan who avg 50 with 74 sr. Yet people hate misbah cause anyone who watched him knew that he was a selfish batter who Botched more games then won it. Mohali, 2013 sa series, wi ct 2013, 2012 England series, they were all winnable series infact pakistan was winning those games until Misbah lost them.
Babar's 2017 century against aus is considered his worst century in odi, so idkw you're bringing that up as he was memed as Misbah E azam for that. Something Ijaz wouldn't have done as Ijaz wasn't know for being tuk tuk. He was very aggressive for his era.
It's mostly his series against NZ where he performed.
Also I don't know why you're bringing up babar's performance in 2024 against aus. He only went not out chasing very low totals of 140 to 190 In the 2nd and 3rd odi and aus didn't even play full strength in the 3rd odi, infact the likes of Hardie were forced to bat at 3?
So idkw you're using that as a metric, by this logic we should use ijaz 87 avg against Bangladesh as a metric.
