Azhar Ali: “I still believe that he’s a top player, he’s Pakistan’s best player”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Ex-captain Azhar Ali still feels batsman Babar Azam is Pakistan’s best player despite all his struggles as of late.
Azam went through a horrendous rough patch, during which he lost his place in the T20I team and faced intense scrutiny for his form across all formats.
Despite these challenges, Azhar reiterated that the 31-year-old remains at number one in his eyes when it comes to the top cricketers in the country.
“I just feel that his form is starting to come back and he’s starting to develop that mindset again. I feel that his main problem, there’s a lot of stuff [that] happened in a year or so that I think confused him or something. But I still believe that he’s a top player, he’s Pakistan’s best player,” the former selector told PakPassion.
Azam endured a dismal time during the 2026 T20 World Cup as he only managed to score 91 runs in six matches at an average of 22.75 and a strike-rate of 112.34.
He was then left out of the team for Pakistan’s three-match ODI series in Bangladesh, which the men in green lost 2-1.
Azam turned things around massively in the recent edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) as he led by example with the bat while captaining the Peshawar Zalmi to the title.
He finished PSL 11 as the highest run-scorer with 588 runs in 11 games, which included two centuries and three fifties, at an average of 73.50 and a strike-rate of 145.90.
Azam will now play for Pakistan in their upcoming tour of Bangladesh, which will consist of two Tests in Mirpur and Sylhet from May 8 to 20.
Pakistan Squad for Bangladesh Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Abdullah Fazal, Amad Butt, Azan Awais, Babar Azam, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Ghazi Ghori (wicketkeeper), Noman Ali, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi