Babar Azam: The fading king of Pakistan cricket | Cricket News

DUBAI: A major reason why Pakistan are floundering in the ICC tournaments in recent years, and are being beaten by arch-rivals India consistently, is the steady decline of Babar Azam, once their premier batter.
Having made his debut against Zimbabwe in Lahore in May 2015, Babar, then just 22, announced his fine talent to the world when he cracked three consecutive centuries against West Indies in UAE in Sept-Oct 2016. Carrying on that initial promise, Babar scored a hundred against Australia at Adelaide and then a few more against West Indies and Sri Lanka. In the 2019 World Cup, while Pakistan crashed out in the league stage, Babar’s performance-474 runs in eight matches@67.71, with three fifties and a hundred, stood out.
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Considering the hunger for runs and the passion for the game that he displayed, there were a few comparisons with India’s legend-in-making Virat Kohli, who was incidentally Babar’s hero. Many even felt he would go on to become Pakistan’s greatest-ever batsman.
His high point came against India in a group match of the 2021 T20 World Cup in October, when captaining the side, Babar, while sharing a 152-run unbeaten stand with fellow opener Mohammed Rizwan, scored a sublime 68 not out off 52 balls to shape Pakistan’s crushing 10-wicket win at the Dubai International Stadium here.
From then on, though, it has been a story of diminishing returns for the former Pakistan captain- hailed once as the ‘King’, Babar’s returns have been that of a pauper of late.
Although he still possesses a fabulous record-6106 runs at average of 55.50 in 128 ODIs, with 19 centuries and 35 fifties, the 30-year-old has failed to deliver in recent years, especially in major tournaments. The off-colour batter’s last ODI century came as far back as Aug 30, 2023 in the Asia Cup-a 151 against Nepal at Multan-23 innings have passed since then.

In his 26 Test innings, Babar has scored only two half-centuries, while in the T20Is, his last half-century (75) came 11 matches ago against Ireland in May 2024. Against big rivals India, all Babar has managed to score is 241 runs in nine matches@30.12, with a top score of 50.
In Pakistan, the criticism from the former players against him has been scathing, and at times, crass-on a TV show post his latest failure-a 26-ball 23 against India in the 2025 Champions Trophy, coming on the back of a laboured 90-ball 64 while chasing 321 against New Zealand at Karachi-Pakistan pace bowling great Shoaib Akhtar went to the extent of calling him a “fraud.”
“We often hear comparisons between Babar Azam and Virat Kohli. But let me ask you, who is Virat Kohli’s hero? It’s Sachin Tendulkar, who has scored a remarkable 100 centuries, and Virat is now aiming to follow in his footsteps. So, who is Babar Azam’s hero? Let’s not name any cricketer,” he remarked during the TV show.
Perhaps, the under-fire batter could do with a valuable piece of advice offered by India’s cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar.
While talking in a video on Basit Ali’s YouTube channel, Gavaskar said, “If you ask me, I will tell Babar just one thing. Right now, his stance is quite spread out. If he can reduce the width between his feet, then two things will happen: one, when your feet are spread out, then you face difficulty going on the backfoot and frontfoot, but when you are more balanced (with feet less wide), then you also gain a bit of height, while you are a bit down with feet spread out. So, you can judge the bounce and movement of the ball a bit better when you are more upright. And an opening batsman needs that height.”
“If he tries to do this, then I believe that the run-making ability he used to have will return, and the whole world will enjoy that, not just the Pakistanis…the whole world wants to see him play shots like the flick through the mid-wicket he produced (in the match against India.”

Slamming Pakistani fans for criticising Babar for his poor form, former India opener Navjot Singh Sidhu, while defending Babar, demanded respect for the player Babar Azam, drawing comparisons to a young Kohli’s struggles early in his career.
Sidhu said, “He has made runs for you and will play for you for a long time. Learn to respect him. Don’t just stand afar and throw stones at him.”
While stalwarts from India have been kinder on Babar, one of the few voices in Pakistan who are softer on the struggling batter, and willing to help him is that of “Someone has to talk to Babar. It’s sad the great talent like Babar is getting wasted,” said Pakistan’s legendary batter Mohammed Yousuf.
Pointing out a technical flaw in his batting against the spinners, which the batter is finding it hard to resolve, Yousuf said on a TV show recently, “Babar’s technique has a problem: Javed Miandad and Zaheer Abbas used to play sweep shots against the spinners. They even went down the wicket to hit them for fours and sixes. Babar can’t play the sweep and reverse sweep shots. He is not able to go down the track against the spinner and is getting stuck. His leg is going across.”