Babar Azam is our cricket captain and he is the no1 batsman in the T20 and ODI rankings. He is number 7th in Test cricket but he is destined to improve and soon we will be witnessing him in the top 5 in sha Allah.
I won't be wrong if I say the Pakistan cricket team has never found such a classic, elegant, and technically sound batsman. Pakistan had many cricket great batsmen like Javed Miandad, Inzamam ul Haq, Muhammad Yousaf, etc but Babar Azam is just on another level. He is patient, keen to improve on his skills and he does that with time.
Yesterday, I was scrolling on Facebook and saw someone shared the Instagram post of Babar Azam's father. It's in Urdu so I am translating it to English for you guys.
"Some truth my nation should know. Congratulations to all of you on the three victories but our home was going through a test at the time of those victories. On the day of the match against India, Babar's mother was in critical condition after she went through an operation and Babar Azam played these three matches tensely. I shouldn't have come to the stadium and stayed with my wife but I came so that Babar Azam doesn't get weak. Thanks to Almighty, she is well now and the purpose of sharing this is to make you guys aware dont target your national heroes without any reason"
Seeing this post made me realize how easily we criticize when our players underperform without even having any idea what they are going through in their personal lives. This shows how mentally and physically tough are these athletes who play for their nation despite the troubles in their personal lives. Just imagine how tougher it was for Babar Azam to play that day when his mother was in the ICU. But his spirit was so high that this worrisome situation could not break his performance as he led from the front and won the match for Pakistan without losing his wicket and scoring winning innings of 68 runs.
The journey of Babar Azam from a ball boy in a test match to No1. batter in both ODI and T20 is inspirational. He started as a ball keeper back in 2007 when south Africa toured Pakistan. He said in an interview that he always wanted to watch top cricketers. He made his first-class debut in 2010 at the age of 16. And then he raised to the glory and never looked back from that point onwards. Most cricketers call him Mr. Consistent and he is currently the most reliable batsman for the Pakistan side.
He is a true symbol of hard work, consistency, talent, and style. I am sure Babar Azam will change the perception of Pakistan and now young kids will take inspiration from him and try to become like him. Pakistan used to have some fantastic bowlers in the past which resulted in young players taking inspiration from them and becoming wonderful fast bowlers which made our bowling department tougher. But Babar Azam will be an idol in the future and young kids will try to become like him. I hope it will make our batting side strong too.
Our people mostly consider our team unpredictable and they never consider any player reliable in our cricket team. But now, everyone considers Babar Azam the most reliable and committed player on our side and most of the people think Babar Azam can keep the scoreboard going.
Ricky Ponting who is a legend once called him a classy player and exciting talent. And he said, "He can be anything". So it's time for Babar Azam to shine and I hope he won't go through any fitness issues and keep going. I have never seen him out of form and I hope he will keep on playing like that and keep making our country proud by winning titles and trophies for our homeland.
Its in the nature of humans to forget the good you did before and focus so much on the mistakes you're making now.
I really wonder how players pick up after such harsh treatments!