AB de Villiers: “I watched him play for the first time, saying this boy can play”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
South Africa great AB de Villiers said the first time he saw Pakistan captain Babar Azam in action, he immediately thought “this boy can play”.
Azam has risen to become one of Pakistan’s greatest players in the modern era as he has broken multiple records and become their most consistent run-scorer across all three formats.
“I watched him play for the first time, saying this boy can play,” De Villiers said during a live session on his YouTube channel as quoted by Cricket Pakistan.
Azam is now leading Pakistan in the T20 World Cup, where his form has deserted him as he has only mustered 14 runs in four matches at an average of 3.50 and a strike-rate of 46.66.
Despite this, the men in green are still in the running to reach the semi-finals after they triumphed over South Africa by 33 runs via the D/L method on Thursday.
Next up for them will be Bangladesh, who they will face on Sunday in Adelaide.
Pakistan’s 2022 T20 World Cup squad: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Mohammad Haris, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood
Reserves: Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir