Babar Azam achieves yet another shameful record for Pakistan, top spot just 2 innings away
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Star Pakistani cricketer Babar Azam recently broke his long-running drought in One-day international cricket against Sri Lanka in the second ODI of the series. He scored a hundred after a long gap of 83 innings; however, the veteran is yet to break the shackles in the shortest format of the game.
Pakistan recently hosted South Africa for a long tour, which marked two Test matches and three white-ball matches in both formats of the game. The tour also marked Babar Azam’s return to the shortest format of the game. However, the legendary batter did not have the best of starts after having been dropped from the Asia Cup previously.
Currently, they are hosting two teams for a tri-series in the shortest format of the game. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe were the two teams that agreed to travel to Pakistan for the series, while the initial participants, Afghanistan, pulled back after a series of diplomatic and political tensions.
Babar Azam nears an unwanted high for Pakistan in T20 cricket
The great Pakistani batter Babar Azam has been a stalwart of the shortest format of the game for Pakistan ever since his debut. Under his leadership, Pakistan had reached great heights and then fallen to extreme lows as well. Overall, the batsman’s career has been a total roller-coaster experience.
Playing against Zimbabwe in the tri-series opener at the same venue as Rawalpindi, where Babar Azam had scored his ODI hundred last week, the veteran Pakistani was dismissed for a duck off three balls.
Coming in to chase a total of 148 runs for the Pakistan team after a slow start, Babar faced three balls from Brad Evans and was sent back in the same over as that of Shahibzada Farhan. This marked his ninth duck of his T20I career, and the second-highest by any Pakistan batter.
Most ducks for PAK in T20Is:
10 - Saim Ayub
10 - Umar Akmal
9 - Babar Azam*
8 - Shahid Afridi
Babar Azam’s breakthrough innings came against Sri Lanka at Rawalpindi
Babar has registered three ducks in his last six batting innings in the shortest format of international cricket. After a series of unconvincing performances from Babar and their awful exit from the group stages of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 after a loss against the USA, he was dropped from the T20I team and was snubbed from captaincy.
Salman Agha was named the new skipper of the side, and under his leadership, the Pakistan team, with relatively newer players, made it all the way to the Asia Cup final, despite losing all three of their games to India.
Babar’s return to international cricket marked the South Africa series. The batter could not manifest anything special throughout the ODI as well as the T20 series, until the last T20I arrived at Lahore, Gaddafi Stadium, where he finally broke the jinx and put on a match-winning 68 off just 47 balls.
Will Pakistan consider playing the ICC T20 World Cup without the veteran?
Pakistan made a group stage exit from the previous ICC T20 World Cup, which had the likes of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan in the side. Since then, the two have been out of the team, with only Babar Azam making a recent return.
Babar recently surpassed former Indian opener Rohit Sharma to emerge as the highest run-getter in T20s. The ICC T20 World Cup will be played in India and Sri Lanka next year, and Pakistan's great has to show some form ahead in the Tri-series and the possible tour of Sri Lanka to be on the squad for the World Cup.
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Pakistan National Cricket Team Babar Azam Pakistan vs Zimbabwe Pakistan T20I Tri-Series Zimbabwe National Cricket Team
