Pakistan’s rising Star Babar Azam

The
greatness of Babar Azam and the end of the decline of critics

The boy has done a great job touring South Africa. Performing like
Babar Azam, he is the perfect answer to one of his critics.

But have critics ever been silent? In Pakistan, there is always a
class, both in sports as well as in politics, whose job is to criticize all the
time or they are waiting for their arrows and spears to be sharpened wherever
the opportunity arises.

Not only the people sitting on the street corner, on the beers, sitting
on the threshing floor, in the rooms, and in the show pals, but also some very
big names have such ‘critical’ thinking. Whether it is politics or sports,
their formula is simple, to catch a single error and get the result by
multiplying all the previous services by zero.

A recent example is former captain Misbah-ul-Haq. What was the ‘evil’
in the world that was not in Misbah? ‘Plays sluggish’, ‘Attitude is not right’,
‘Not fit to lead’, ‘I don’t know anything about modern cricket’, ‘Speech is not
right’, ‘Not beautiful’, ‘Hair is not long’, ‘ Doesn’t appear in shampoo
advertisements, etc.

Readmore > Babar Azam Surpassed Virat Kohli in all three formats

But at a time when such nonsensical criticism was taking place in the
country, a world outside Pakistan recognized Misbah and saw him as a broken,
defeated team that was once again on the path to victory. The leader of a team
that didn’t even get a chance to play on its turf and was beating the best
teams in the world in their home countries, but even then Misbah was only
criticized.

Going further back, this story takes longer. In the time of Shahid
Afridi, phrases like ‘Captain was just Younis Khan’. He described
Inzamam-ul-Haq’s leadership style as “unserious” during Younis’s
tenure. But these same people, remembering Moin Khan’s ‘aggressive style’ in
the era of integration, kept ‘Anzi’ under control. For such ‘critics’, Wasim
Akram was the best captain in Waqar Younis’ time, Javed Miandad was the’ street
fighter ‘in Wasim Akram’s time and Imran Khan was the greatest captain ‘in his
time. Keep pulling, this story will go on.

However, Babar Azam is also facing the same ‘disgusting cycle’. With
the reins of leadership in their hands, they too are facing similar criticism
from time to time and will continue to do so in the future, unless they say
goodbye to the world of cricket. Therefore, Babar will have to follow a golden
and great principle written on the back of Karachi’s buses, “Pass or
face”, just like his head coach Misbah-ul-Haq.

By the way, ignoring criticism has become a very difficult task now.
This is the age of social media in which we are seeing the idiom ‘as many
mouths, as many words’ as possible. In other words, it is not wrong to say that
the real test of Babar Azam is inside the field but the tough test will be ‘off
the field’. They will sometimes have to listen to ridicule for being
responsible for the defeat, sometimes with complaints of low strike rate, from
‘so-and-so bowler should have given over to ‘he should have been sent to bat
first. 

Readmore > ICC T20 Ranking: Babar Azambecomes No 1 Batsman in the world

However, the tour of South Africa is very difficult for all such
so-called critics to digest. Babar Azam has achieved an honor here that has
been given to very few batsmen in the history of Pakistan. He is only the
fourth batsman in the history of ODI cricket in Pakistan to be ranked first.

Before him, Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, and Mohammad Yousuf were the
only Pakistani batsmen to have won the number one spot in ODI cricket. The ODI
rankings were officially launched in 1998, meaning only Muhammad Yusuf became
the world number one batsman in 2003. The rest were later declared the number
one batsman of their time by calculation.

 

Before Babar Azam, it was officially only Muhammad Yusuf who became the
world’s number one batsman in 2003.

The highlight of Babar Azam’s feat is that he ended the long reign of
Indian captain Virat Kohli in ODIs which had been going on for three and a half
years. A batsman whose greatness no one doubts. No batsman in the world has
been able to take Virat down from this position for 41 months and to do so, a
consistent and full performance was required which Babar has shown well.

In the last two years, Babar has scored 1346 runs in 21 ODIs at an
average of about 71 and a strike rate of over 97, including 5 centuries and 7
half-centuries. In South Africa, he scored 103 in the first ODI and 94 in the
last to become the best player of the series. They have achieved a lot in this
‘Bali Umaria’ but we do not want to open the record because it is not as
important to open it as it is for our ‘critics’ to open their minds.

 

He has achieved a lot in this ‘young age’

In his eyes, Babar will probably be called the greatest batsman when he
wins the match against India by hitting six sixes off the last six balls in a
World Cup knockout match against India, because the person who is your ‘two
taka ego’ If you can’t convince him, he deserves you to criticize him. Probably
this is the reason why Misbah’s ‘crime’ could not be forgiven even after
performing so many feats, the 2007 World T20 final and the 2011 World Cup
final.