Salman Butt: “We never said Babar is the king, but he is the best batter in Pakistan”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former opener Salman Butt believes former limited overs captain Babar Azam is “the best batter in Pakistan”, but stopped short of calling him “the king”.
Azam has long been Pakistan’s most consistent run-scorer in all three formats and has repeatedly won games for the country by himself.
However, the 29-year-old is currently going through a rough patch and has seen his runs dry up significantly.
In the recent two-Test series against Bangladesh, he was only able to score 64 runs at an average of 16.
“We never said Babar is the king, but he is the best batter in Pakistan,” Salman was quoted as saying by journalist Farid Khan on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Following the Bangladesh series, Azam took part in the Champions One-Day Cup, which was a domestic 50-over tournament held in Faisalabad.
In four matches, he accumulated 230 runs, which included a century and a fifty, at an average of 76.66.
Next up for the Lahore-born batsman will be Pakistan’s three-Test series against England, which is scheduled to be held from October 7 to 28 in Multan and Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Squad for 1st Test against England: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Mir Hamza, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Naseem Shah, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wicketkeeper), Shaheen Shah Afridi.
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