2023; Year of gain and loss for Babar Azam

Year 2023 is ready to say goodbye now with good and bad memories. The past year has been a mixed year for the Pakistan cricket team. Star batsman Babar Azam lost the captaincy of the team after a disastrous World Cup campaign but his personal performance remained outstanding, with many world records falling in his lap, proof of his being one of the great cricketers of the present era.

The poor performance of the Pakistan cricket team in the recently held World Cup in India and earlier in the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka was blamed by many on Babar’s captaincy. He resigned from the three-format captaincy last month on his return home. After this, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) appointed Shan Masood as the Test captain and Shaheen Shah as the T20 captain.

In 2023, Babar Azam was the number one One-Day Internationals (ODI) batsman in the International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings for almost the entire year and after holding the crown of the number one batsman for more than 900 days, but unfortunately he lost this honor during the World Cup 2023.

Babar Azam’s abilities were recognized at the government level and for his superior performance, he was awarded the Star of Distinction by President Dr. Arif Alvi on the occasion of Pakistan Day.

He achieved two world records in a single match of the ODI series against New Zealand. In the second match of the five-match series against the Kiwis, Babar Azam became the fastest batsman to score 5000 runs and the fastest 18 centuries, equaling South African batsman Hashim Amla’s record. Babar reached the milestone in 97 innings while the former Proteas batsman took 102 innings.

The former captain also became the fastest batsman to score 9000 runs in T20 cricket, accomplishing the feat in 245 innings. This honor was previously held by West Indian batsman Chris Gayle who scored 9000 runs in 249 runs.

Babar Azam notched up another world record by scoring a magnificent century in the T20 International in New Zealand, playing his 101st match as captain, became the player with the most centuries in T20 as captain. He broke the record of Indian captain Rohit Sharma who was the first with two centuries. Babar Azam has achieved the honor of scoring three centuries as a captain in T20.

Azam was then awarded the Outstanding Performance Player of the Month award by the ICC in August. This was the third award overall after winning the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year and ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year last year.

Under the leadership of Babar Azam, Pakistan became the number one ODI team in the ICC rankings this year. Pakistan won the ODI series against New Zealand after 12 years. Pakistan whitewashed Sri Lanka in the Test series and Afghanistan in the ODI series. The Test and T20 series against New Zealand remained a draw, but the Pakistan team’s performance in the last two assignments in the Asia Cup 2024 and the World Cup was disappointing due to unavailability of Naseem Shah in bowling attack.

Babar Azam’s Overall Performance in International Cricket:

Babar Azam has scored a total of 12986 runs in all three formats (Test, ODI & T20) of international cricket so far, 3772 runs in 49 Test matches, including nine centuries and 26 fifties.

He has scored 5729 runs in 117 one-day matches, including 19 centuries and 32 fifties, while in 104 T20 matches, he has scored 3485 runs with the help of three centuries and 38 fifties.