Sir Viv Richards: “I would never ever leave Babar Azam out. Because to me Babar has been excellent at all levels. Whether it’s ODIs, Tests or T20Is. The perfect sort of individual that any individual in the modern day needs to have look at”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Legendary West Indies batsman Sir Viv Richards has made it clear that he would never leave Babar Azam out of the Pakistan team.
His comments come after Azam was removed from the Test squad midway through the three-Test series against England.
The 30-year-old hasn’t been in the best of form as of late and thus only featured in the first Test against England, where he made scores of 30 and 5.
Despite his struggles, Richards feels Pakistan should always back Azam since he has achieved so much personally and done a lot for the country as well.
“I would never ever leave Babar Azam out. Because to me Babar has been excellent at all levels. Whether it’s ODIs, Tests or T20Is. The perfect sort of individual that any individual in the modern day needs to have look at,” he was quoted as saying by journalist Farid Khan on X, formerly known as Twitter.
After the England series, Azam was involved in Pakistan’s limited overs tour of Australia and scored 80 runs in three ODIs at an average of 80.
As for the three-match T20I series, the Lahore native accumulated 47 runs at an average of 15.66.
Pakistan’s next assignment will be a white-ball series against Zimbabwe, which will consist of three ODIs and three T20Is that will be played from November 24 to December 5.
Pakistan Squad for Zimbabwe ODI Series: Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Faisal Akram, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Rizwan (captain and wicketkeeper), Irfan Khan, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Shahnawaz Dahani, Tayyab Tahir
Pakistan Squad for Zimbabwe T20I Series: Ahmed Daniyal, Arafat Minhas, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Jahandad Khan, Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain, Irfan Khan, Omair bin Yousuf, Qasim Akram, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Ali Agha, Sufiyan Muqeem, Tayyab Tahir, Usman Khan
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