Babar Azam: “I keep teasing Rizwan on the field, our bond is very healthy but I want to get him out as soon as possible when he’s batting”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Pakistan superstar Babar Azam has admitted that whenever he faces wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan, he is eager “to get him out as soon as possible.”
Azam knows how dangerous of a batsman the 31-year-old is, especially since they opened together for a couple of years in T20Is.
Recently, the two batting behemoths squared off against each other in the 2024 Pakistan Super League (PSL), with Azam captaining the Peshawar Zalmi and Rizwan leading the Multan Sultans.
While Azam came out on top in the runs category, Rizwan didn’t have a bad campaign by any means as he was the third-highest run-scorer with 407 runs in 12 matches, which included four fifties, at an average of 33.91 and a strike-rate of 122.22.
“I keep teasing Rizwan on the field, our bond is very healthy but I want to get him out as soon as possible when he’s batting,” the 29-year-old was quoted as saying by journalist Farid Khan on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Azam was almost unstoppable with the bat in PSL 9 and ended up being the top run-scorer with 569 runs in 11 games, which included a century and five fifties, at an average of 56.90 and a strike-rate of 142.60.
Multan Sultans Squad for PSL 9: Mohammad Rizwan (captain), Iftikhar Ahmed, David Willey, Khushdil Shah, Usama Mir, Dawid Malan, Abbas Afridi, Reeza Hendricks, Tayyab Tahir, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Khan, Mohammad Ali, Faisal Akram, Yasir Khan, Chris Jordan, Aftab Ibrahim, Johnson Charles, Mohammad Shehzad
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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