This article was originally crafted by me on 02-12-2023. Reposted for archival purposes.
When it comes to ICC rankings, no Pakistani batsman has ever been able to sit on the top 5 simultaneously. Years passed and many batters debuted and hung up their boots, but none even came close to this feat. Later in 2015, a rightie named Mohammed Babar Azam made his debut at Gaddafi stadium. And unlike most of the other rookies he had ideas to stick around for the team.
Whenever you open the list of the top batsmen as per ICC, you can see Babar Azam securing the positions of 4, 2 and 4 in Tests, ODIs and T20Is respectively. This is a record held by no other Pakistani batter in history. More interestingly, this is not even his peak period. His all-time best ranking is no. 1 in the limited over and no. 2 in tests. It does sound appalling that he is still acknowledged as a “minnow basher” or “overrated.”
Throughout his 8-year career, Babar averages an excellent 49 with 2064 runs in SENA countries in ODIs which disproves the myth that he is a home-track bully. The fact that prodigious Pakistani batters such as Inzamam Ul Haq or Saeed Anwar haven’t even secured an average above 30 also arouses interest. Azams’s contemporaries such as Fakhar Zaman or Imam Ul Haq are also way behind him in the list.
When the performance vs strong oppositions are also considered, Babar’s stats speak for themselves. His average in ODIs is a spectacular 54 against SENA teams with 2939 runs under his belt. How ridiculous does it sound now to call him a small team bully! 13 Pakistani batters have above 2000 runs against SENA teams in ODIs and among that Babar Azam is the only one with an average above 50. The second-best average is 40 by Javed Miandad.
Pakistani fans do tend to place Babar over Virat and that is undoubtedly a dealbreaker because he is not even close to the legacy Virat has built. But due to the naivety of the fans, he receives a lot of undeserved hate, and his batting prowess is unrecognized by many. He has a long way to go but it is reasonable to admit that Babar Azam does have the caliber to be acknowledged as one of the greatest batters cricket has ever seen.
