A gritty 75 under dire circumstances on day one of the second Test between West Indies and Pakistan further emphasizes how Babar Azam has turned into a Test batsman impossible to ignore in the big discussions, writes Rohit Sankar.
Sign up to The Cricket Draft, powered by Wisden, an all-new, free-to-play fantasy game running alongside The Hundred, to win prizes and compete with your friends.
Friday was business as usual for Pakistan cricket: the top-order collapses as usual and Babar Azam and Fawad Alam combine in a 166-run stand to lift the side from the abyss.
The first ball Babar faces — a nonchalant, non-scoring leave against a pumped-up Kemar Roach, who has already taken out two batsmen in two overs — is perhaps testimony to the Test batsman he is right now. Roach sent one angling in from a wider release point. An assured Babar reads the length perfectly, covers the movement closely and leaves. There are ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the slip cordon as the ball goes dangerously close to the stumps, but Babar’s judged this one perfectly. Just like he has mastered Test cricket in recent years.
Since the start of 2019, Babar is the 12th leading run-scorer in Test cricket behind some prominent names. Among batsmen with a minimum of 1,000 runs in this time frame, Babar comes in fifth in terms of averages, behind Kane Williamson, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith and Rohit Sharma, all of them averaging over 50.
For a batsman who has developed a reputation as a leading limited-overs player, the Test numbers have largely floated under the radar. Sure, there were the odd hues and cries to recognize Babar as a Test batting giant, most notably by Nasser Hussain in Sky Sports commentary on Pakistan’s tour of England last year.
“They talk about the ‘Fab Four’ (Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root), but it’s the ‘Fab Five’ and Babar is in that,” Hussain commented.
