Babar Azam, the captain of Pakistan, was born on October 15, 1994, in Lahore, Pakistan. He is currently one of the most productive and reliable batters in international cricket. With his steady achievements across all formats over the past few years, the right-handed batter is currently regarded as one of the greatest players of the modern era, along with Virat Kohli of India, Steven Smith of Australia, Joe Root of England, and Kane Williamson of New Zealand.
In 2015, the Men in Green’s one-day international encounter against Zimbabwe in Harare marked the 28-year-old’s debut for the team. He played against England the following year in Manchester in the shortest international format for the first time. Against the West Indies in Dubai (DSC), Babar wore the White Jersey for the first time that year.
Babar Azam simply kept getting better after making his ODI debut, eventually joining that team as a permanent member.
He consistently scored runs, which made him one of the most important and necessary players in the lineup. Despite having established himself early in his ODI career, Babar Azam 360-run performance against the West Indies in a three-match bilateral series in the United Arab Emirates in 2016 was his most memorable accomplishment.
He scored 120, 123, and 117 to pound out century in each of the three ODIs. It is still tied with Shubman Gill’s three-match series total against New Zealand in India in 2023 for the most runs scored by a batter in a three-match series. Let’s fast-forward to 2023, where Babar has established himself as the finest player in the world in this format with a respectable average of 57.59. In the 50-over format, he has scored 19 hundreds for his nation, one less than the former Pakistani left-hander Saeed Anwar (20).
The player, who was born in Lahore, is also in front of three of the aforementioned “Fab 4” players, with Smith (12), Williamson (13) and Root (16) all following him. The Pakistani captain is far behind only run-machine Kohli, who has racked up an astonishing 47 hundred in this format. After a remarkable and successful 1992 campaign, the Asian giants will rely on Babar to accomplish the dual duty of captaincy and amassing runs to perfection in the current World Cup as they attempt to win their second championship.
Babar Azam ODI Stats:
Matches | Innings | Runs | Average | Strike-Rate | HS | 50s | 100s |
109 | 106 | 5414 | 57.59 | 88.94 | 158 | 28 | 19 |