Veteran West Indies player and commentator Ian Bishop has praised Pakistani captain Babar Azam, who recently topped the ICC T20I and ODI Batting rankings, and claimed that he is arguably the “ultimate super 50-over batter” in the game, nearly surpassing India’s Virat Kohli. The renowned commentator believes that the 27-year-old is headed for greatness, especially in the 50-over format where he averages over 60 and has scored 17 hundred. Kohli has worked hard to be at his best despite Babar’s excellent effort.
“Babar Azam is on the road to greatness, And I want to be clear when I say on the road to it in white-ball cricket at least and certainly 50-overs cricket. Because I don’t use the term great loosely. I think I have discussed this with a couple of my colleagues 24 hours ago, it has to be a bigger sample size but average as it stands now, on the cusp of 60 with 17 ODI hundreds,” Bishop told
His Test cricket is a work in progress: Bishop
Babar has been in outstanding form for Pakistan; most recently, he helped his nation defeat the West Indies 3-0 in an ODI series. He already possesses the record of twice scoring three consecutive ODI hundreds, but in the Test format, he has not had many standout performances.
“He has almost overtaken his next-door neighbor, the great Virat Kohli, in terms of the ultimate uber 50-over batsman. His Test cricket is a work in progress. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken Test cricket numbers a lot earlier. He’s starting to get better at it. Technically, he’s superb. In the future, I’m hoping he will be mentioned in the same breath in Test cricket as the top 3-4 players,” Bishop added.
The Netherlands will be Pakistan’s next opponent in a series of three international games in August, all of which will take place at Rotterdam’s Hazelaarweg.
