As of January 12, 2017
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| Babar Azam |
When Pakistan last played an ODI series, Babar Azam scored centuries in three
consecutive matches and became the third Pakistani batsman to score a hat-trick
of centuries after Zaheer Abbas and Saeed Anwar. Now, in the first match of the
Pakistan-Australia ODI series, the
young Babar's eyes are on setting a world record and breaking another.
Babar Azam,
22, has played 18 ODIs so far in which he has scored 886 runs at an average of
over 52. Now, if he scores another 114 in the next two ODIs, he will break the
37-year-old record of great batsman Sir Vivian Richards. Vivian completed his
1,000th ODI run in a match against England in January 1980, playing his 21st
ODI innings. It was a new world record for scoring a thousand runs in the
shortest innings that is still held today, decades later Of course, its permanence now depends
on the performance of Babar Azam.
Babar had scored hundreds in all three ODIs against the West Indies a few months ago. After Zaheer Abbas and Saeed Anwar, Babar Azam played 120, 123 and 117 innings. Now, if he scores a century against Australia in Brisbane, he will stand by the side of the great Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara. Sanga scored centuries against Bangladesh, England, Australia and Scotland during the 2015 World Cup and broke a very old record by playing four consecutive triple-digit innings.
By the way, the tour of Australia has been very disappointing for Babar Azam so far. He has scored only 68 runs in six innings of three Test matches. However, in the warm-up match before the ODI series, he had scored 98 runs against Cricket Australia XI. Thanks to his innings, Pakistan reached 334 runs and later won the match by 196 runs. Will Babar be able to play some such innings in the first ODI? The good news for him is that Josh Hazelwood will not play the first ODI, having been dismissed in four of the six innings in the Test series.
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| Babar Azam |
