In one of the recent Batta Fast podcasts, Osman Samiuddin highlighted how most of the great players make adjustments to their game according to the ever-changing demands of the game, conditions or opposition. Babar Azam has not improved his game for years and now he is lagging.
There has always been criticism of Babar Azam and his scoring rate, here Babar is not different from many others, T20 cricket is as such, and there is always criticism especially on the scoring rate, mostly on anchors nowadays. There were even talks of India dropping one of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli from the T20 World Cup squad as they did not want to have 2 anchors.
In the Pakistan team currently, along with Babar, there are 2 more anchors in Fakhar Zaman and Mohammad Rizwan. Fakhar is not how Pakistani anchors are mostly, but it is close to how an anchor should be.
Has Babar improved his batting in PSL?
Now if we look at Babar Azam only and his “improvement” in PSL over the years, he has upped his strike rate a bit.
| Babar Azam in PSL 2016-2022 | Babar Azam in PSL 2023-2024 | ||||
| Runs | Avg | SR | Runs | Avg | SR |
| 2409 | 43.8 | 120.9 | 1092 | 57.5 | 143.7 |
Babar Azam in PSL 2023:
His strike rate in 2023’s PSL was still objectionable as it was inflated due to Peshawar Zalmi playing 4 games in Pindi including two where 240+ was chased, however, in PSL’s 2024 edition Babar Azam had a better average and strike rate as he finished the highest run-scorer with a good strike rate as well.
However, we need to view this strike rate in context, in the PSL 2023 games Babar played. All 33 openers collectively had an average of 31.2 and a strike rate of 162.6. While Babar averaged 52.2 which was much higher than others, his strike rate was 145.4 which was quite lower than others.
Babar Azam in PSL 2024:
If you see the stats of openers in the PSL 2024 games that Babar played, his numbers are way better than others. Other openers in the games Babar played averaged 28.3 and had a strike rate of 139. In comparison to them, Babar had an average of 63.3 and a strike rate of 142.1 in this year’s PSL, completely dominating the charts.
So if we consider general stats, then sure Babar this season had a dip compared to 2023’s, but if you factor in conditions and match situations, then Babar has improved a lot and 2024 was probably his best-ever PSL season, even though he has had a higher average in a PSL season before this and higher strike rate before this as well.
Also Read: Top 5 Batsmen to Watch Out for in T20i World Cup 2024
Babar in Bilateral Series, Results in Internationals:
After PSL 2023:
In 2023, New Zealand toured Pakistan for yet another series after the PSL that year. Babar Azam after the PSL 2023 season had the chance to show “uska Level hi aur hai” on the international stage.
He did show it to an extent, he had the 2nd most runs among openers in that series(130 runs) at the highest strike rate that series by an opener (146.1).
However, out of his 130 runs, 101 runs came in one innings. His other scores read: 9(7), 1(6) and 19(18). All of these are low scores and not at a high strike rate as well to show that he got out trying to maximize the powerplay.
After that series, the next T20I series was also against New Zealand, but this time it was an away series.
This was a high-scoring tour, especially for New Zealand’s batters, who scored 220+ twice in 5 games. Babar again scored the 2nd most runs and he batted at number 3 in this series. He scored 3 fifties in 5 games, but you can say he did not come out of his comfort zone in terms of strike rate.
He had a strike rate of 142, even though in absolute terms it can be termed fine but his strike rate was lower than Finn Allen and even Kane Williamson had a higher strike rate than him.
There were games when Pakistan was chasing 200+ totals and Babar kept his hitting game for too long when players around him like Saim, Fakhar, Nawaz and Shaheen were hitting, instead, he went into a shell and slowed down the game.
After PSL 2024:
Even though Babar further improved his game in PSL this year, his game in T20Is fell off more after this PSL.
After getting the captaincy back, it was old Babar once again, from striking at over 140 against New Zealand, his strike rate fell to 137 in another home T20I series against the Kiwis.
Out of 4 games in this series, only 1 was Babar in Pakistan’s top 3 impact players according to Cricinfo. In one of those, he was Pakistan’s 10th most impactful player!
Next up was the away series against Ireland, Babar was very disappointing here, especially in the first two games. In the first game, he scored a fifty with his strike rate in 130s, which for a batter of his standard is very below par especially against a team like Ireland (no disrespect). Despite Iftikhar and Shaheen’s striking finish, Pakistan had just 182 runs and then lost this game. In this game, Babar was the 8th most impactful player overall and Pakistan’s 5th most impactful player.
In the 2nd game, Babar got out on a 4-ball duck. Though, in the last game he did make a comeback while chasing the lowest 1st innings total of the series. He managed to accelerate later in this game as well because of Rizwan’s early onslaught.
Rizwan scored 37 runs in his first 15 balls in this innings, while Babar on the other end struggled, and scored just 19 runs in his first 15 balls. After a couple more balls, Babar started to hit the ball well and hit 4 sixes in an over.
Conclusion:
Babar Azam has improved his game a lot in the PSL seasons over time, his season in PSL 9 was probably his best performance. In T20Is, he hasn’t shown the intent he has shown in the PSL, and when he does as Tariq Saeed says:
“Babar Azam ki batting Zauq mein izafa karti hai”
Author’s Twitter/X : @ZaidBabarKhan1
Also Read:
