Aakash Chopra: “Babar Azam hasn’t played well in the entire tournament. Whenever he has played, he has played at almost a run-a-ball and we didn’t see any dominating knock, although these are good batting conditions”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra believes Pakistan batsman Babar Azam didn’t play a single dominating knock during the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Azam, who resigned as captain after the tournament, finished with 320 runs in nine matches, which included four fifties, at an average of 40.
In addition to being disappointed about the 29-year-old’s low scores, Chopra also lashed out at his strike-rate, indicating it was too low.
“Babar Azam hasn’t played well in the entire tournament. Whenever he has played, he has played at almost a run-a-ball and we didn’t see any dominating knock, although these are good batting conditions,” he said on his YouTube channel as quoted by Geo Super.
Following the World Cup, Azam scored 126 runs at an average of 21 in Pakistan’s three-match Test series against Australia.
He then went on to make 213 runs in the five-match T20I series against New Zealand, which included three fifties, at an average of 42.60 and a strike-rate of 142.
Currently, he is captaining the Peshawar Zalmi in the 2024 Pakistan Super League (PSL) and has amassed 447 runs in eight matches, which includes a century and four fifties, at an average of 63.85 and a strike-rate of 154.67.
Peshawar Zalmi Squad for PSL 9: Babar Azam (captain), Rovman Powell, Saim Ayub, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Asif Ali, Mohammad Haris, Aamer Jamal, Naveen-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Salman Irshad, Arif Yaqoob, Umair Afridi, Dan Mousley, Haseebullah Khan, Mohammad Zeeshan, Mehran Mumtaz, Luke Wood, Sufiyan Muqeem, Waqar Salamkheil, Arshad Iqbal, Gus Atkinson, Shamar Joseph
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