Ian Bishop: “Babar Azam is on the road to greatness”
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Former West Indies pace bowler Ian Bishop said Pakistan captain Babar Azam is “on the road to greatness” in limited overs cricket.
Azam has established himself as one of the elite batsmen in the world across all three formats, but Bishop has been mightily impressed with his performances in white-ball cricket, especially ODIs.
In the two-Test series against Sri Lanka, he was Pakistan’s highest run-scorer with 271 runs, which included a century and two fifties, at an average of 67.75.
“Babar Azam is on the road to greatness,” Bishop told Cricwick. “And I want to be clear when I say on the road to it in white-ball cricket at least and certainly 50-overs cricket.
“Because I don’t use the term great loosely. I think I have discussed this with a couple of my colleagues 24 hours ago, it has to be a bigger sample size but average as it stands now, on the cusp of 60 with 17 ODI hundreds.”
The 27-year-old is currently leading Pakistan in their three-match ODI series against the Netherlands, where he has accumulated 131 runs in two matches, which includes back-to-back half-centuries, at an average of 65.50.
After this series, he will travel with the Pakistan team to the UAE for the Asia Cup, which will be played from August 27 to September 11.
Pakistan squad for Netherlands ODIs:Â Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Abdullah Shafique, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Zahid Mehmood
Pakistan squad for Asia Cup:Â Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir
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