Tom Moody: “In the next 5-10 years, Babar will definitely be in your top 5. But at the moment, it’s hard to justify him in that position [given] his statistics”
Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo
Former Australia batsman Tom Moody believes that Pakistan batsman and T20 captain Babar Azam will only be among the top five batsmen in the world in “the next 5-10 years”.
While many other cricketers, both past and present, feel that Azam is right at the top with players like India captain Virat Kohli and Australia batsman Steve Smith, Moody insisted that it is “hard to justify him in that position [given] his statistics”.
In the two-Test series against Australia last year, Azam accumulated 210 runs, which included a century and a fifty, at an average of 52.50.
He made a superb 104 in Brisbane and followed that up with a brilliant 97 in the second Test in Adelaide.
The 25-year-old followed that up with 262 runs, which included two centuries, at an average of 262 in the two-Test series against Sri Lanka.
Azam scored an unbeaten 102 in the first Test in Rawalpindi, while he made 100 not out in the second Test in Karachi.
In Pakistan’s most recent Test match against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi, Azam struck a career-best 143.
Most recently, Azam represented the Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), where he finished as the tournament’s highest run-scorer with 345 runs in 10 games for the Kings at an average of 49.28 and a strike-rate of 123.65.
[interaction id=”5c6243f6e7b5ae06d93694af”]
“In the next 5-10 years, Babar will definitely be in your top 5. But at the moment, it’s hard to justify him in that position [given] his statistics,” Moody said on The Pitch Side Experts Podcast as quoted by PakPassion. “He’s averaging 37 away and 67 [at] home but we’ve got to consider he’s barely played away from home. A lot of those games were in the early part of his career.”
[interaction id=”5dc6e7fe84c507bcfc1855f9″]