Moeen Ali: “Babar Azam, obviously, everybody knows that he’s an amazing player, he’s a brilliant player. As far as [his] ranking is concerned, I don’t care personally – I mean you watch a player, and you know he’s a top player”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
England all-rounder Moeen Ali said he doesn’t care about Babar Azam’s ranking as he knows the Pakistan white-ball captain is “an amazing player”.
On the International Cricket Council (ICC) batsmen rankings, Azam is currently in ninth place in Tests, first in ODIs, and fifth in T20Is.
Despite this, Moeen noted that no one needs to see the standings to know how good of a player the 29-year-old is.
“Babar Azam, obviously, everybody knows that he’s an amazing player, he’s a brilliant player. As far as [his] ranking is concerned, I don’t care personally – I mean you watch a player, and you know he’s a top player,” he was quoted as saying by PakPassion.
“I don’t think teams and countries talk too much about rankings and where people stand but it’s all about performing on the big stage and in World Cups and winning for your team, but we know Babar is an amazing player and everybody loves watching him play.”
Azam is currently playing in Pakistan’s two-match Test series against Bangladesh and made scores of 0 and 22 in the first Test, which the men in green lost by 10 wickets.
He will be looking for a big score in the second Test, which started on August 30 in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Squad for Bangladesh Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Shaheen Shah Afridi
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