Babar and Rizwan should not be paired in one sentence.
Babar is a very talented batsmen. I get alot of criticism on this forumn by posters such as
@gazza619 and
@Hyder for hating Babar, Which is fine, no disrespect to those 2, im sure they have their reasons for critiquing me.
But thats because I believe rizwan + Ramiz + Misbah ruined him.
Not because I dont view him as talented. Yes he was overrated in that he was never the best talent in the world or the 2nd coming of kohli.
Babar Azam at an early age hit 3 back to back centuries in odi cricket, something no other cricketer has achieved. The quality of the attack does not matter as the likes of Ab de villers have played West indies and B team Australia multiple times, Aka same attack, same pitches.
Many teams have played vs minnows yet only babar managed to achieve this feat. His 2019 century is insanely good against NZ. Pitch was really difficult and NZ attack was extremely good.
He has also solid knocks against Sri Lanka and England featuring england bowlers in their primes. His 2017 century vs Aus is very good.
People hate it due to pakistan losing but chasing 350 is extremely hard and literally no one supported him. You always need atleast 2 batters to support you in monster 350 chases.
The issue is his form went down the drain to the point that he cant even score against Bangladesh on absolute road pitches in his home den in test cricket. He has shown flashes of brilliance in odi only since then but test and t20 are nil.
I 100% blame rizwan, Misbah and ramiz as the culprits.
Now as for rizwan. Rizwan is a crappie batsmen. He can play well in test cricket since deapite being limited he has mastered his legside strokes hence he can leave the offside alone.
But in odi and t20 his offside game gets exposed each and every time. Rizzu has one purple patch run in t20 in 2021 and one purple patch run in pdi in 2023.
But besides that he's been filth. But pakistan doesnt have any replacements in odi for rizzu atm. Haris is a good replacement In t20 as t20 os about hack and slash but he cant replace rizwan in odi even if he was to bat at no 7.
Since rizzu's replacements at no 4/5 like hasan nawaz are t20 material, Saud is unsuited for odi, KG and Agha are the only options but agha has made no 5 his own and KG is unproven and hasnt capitalised the opportunity given to him.