Pakistani cricketer Babar Azam is undoubtedly his country’s best player across formats. Having recently been given the charge to lead the Pakistan T20I side against Australia, the top-order batsman emerged as his side’s top-scoring batsman in the series against Australia with a total of 115 runs. Although those runs couldn’t help the visitors win even a single game against the ruthless Aussies. With the next assignment being a 2-match Test series Down Under, Babar hit a whopping 157* against Australia A in the 3-day practice Test to warm up in style. According to the ex-Aussie cricketer, Michael Hussey, however, Azam needs to hit such figures in big games to be considered among the best players in the world like Virat Kohli and Steve Smith.
“If Babar Azam can start hitting some big hundreds in Tests, he can be in that same conversation when we talk about the best players in the world, like Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson and Joe Root. He’s that good, he’s a brilliant player,” Hussey said after witnessing Babar’s heroics on Day 1 of the Practice Test.
Australian cricketer Travis Head also hailed Babar as an ‘exceptionally good player’ who converted his white-ball form into red-ball and posed a big challenge to the Australia A bowlers.
“He’s an exceptionally good player. He’s obviously translated that (white-ball) form nicely today,” Head said at the end of day’s play. “We’ll think of some plans over the next couple of days and the next couple of weeks, I guess, for the guys playing the first Test against him.”
