Babar Azam is one of the top players in the world - Phil Simmons

Pakistan Super League outfit Karachi Kings’ Trinidadian head coach Phil Simmons was all praise for Peshawar Zalmi captain and former all-format captain of the Pakistan national team Babar Azam for being one of the best cricketers of all 3 formats at the moment. Simmons made these comments while speaking to a local Pakistani outlet on the eve of PSL 9’s opening match between Multan Sultans and Lahore Qalandars.

Babar Azam was made the most expensive player ever during the player draft for PSL by the Zalmis for a sum that exceeded 2 crores of Pakistani rupees.

The star batter will be playing his 2nd season with the Peshawar-based outfit. Babar first entered the PSL scene, playing for Islamabad United in 2016 before being drafted by the Karachi-based team ahead of the 2017 edition. He has scored most of his 2935 PSL runs in his 6 seasons with the Karachi-based team from 2017-2022.

The 29-year-old stands as the highest run scorer in Pakistan’s most awaited sporting competition from 79 matches at an average of 43.80, including a century and 28 half-centuries. One of the main reasons why Peshawar Zalmi splashed over 2 crores on Babar Azam was to try and bring the glory days back.

Peshawar Zalmi were the winners of the PSL season back in 2017 and they had finished 3rd in the points table last year and missed out from reaching the finals after losing to eventual winners Lahore Qalandars in the Eliminator 2 match at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

This year they have a solid squad having players like Shamar Joseph (partially), Aamer Jamal, Saim Ayub, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, and Asif Ali among others. And when they already have a leader like Babar Azam, the PSL title could be returning to Peshawar for the 2nd time. 

“There’s nothing that he hasn’t done” – Phil Simmons opines on Babar Azam

Meanwhile, Babar’s former outfit’s head coach, Phil Simmons feels that the PSL’s most expensive entity has been doing everything he can across all formats and that he will be ending up as the country’s greatest ever batsman to ever play the sport.

Simmons stated that it is the least compliment he can offer to Babar Azam whose side will be in action in PSL 9’s second match against the Quetta Gladiators in Lahore.

“He has been one of the top players in the world, in all three formats for a while now. There’s nothing that he hasn’t done in all three formats. He’s boring on being one of the greats of Pakistan cricket or world cricket by the end of his career. So that’s least compliment I can pay hiom, he’s up there and he’s up there for a while now.” – Simmons told Cricket Pakistan. 

Peshawar Zalmi squad for PSL 9: Babar Azam, Asif Ali, Aimal Khan, Salman Irshad, Daniel Mousely, Mohammad Zeeshan, Arshad Iqbal, Shamar Joseph, Luke Wood, Sufyan Muqeem, Mehran Mumtaz, Haseebullah Khan, Waqar Salimkheil, Khurram Shahzad, Arif Yaqoob, Saim Ayub, Aamer Jamal, Rovman Powell, Gus Atkinson, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Mohammad Haris, Umair Afridi