Could you ever imagine someone scoring 181 runs with a Strike Rate of 157.39 in three T20Is getting criticized for his team losing? Well it’s no longer a fantasy because that’s exactly what a certain individual is going through right now.

57(35), 66(43) and 58(37) = 181 Runs at an average of 60.33 with a strike rate of 157.39. These scores give off an impression of a player who is in form, playing for the team and consistently scoring runs at a good strike rate. However, a certain group of people are constantly trying to make this particular player a scapegoat of a hat-trick of failures of Pakistan in a sport that ironically happens to be a team game.

It appears that no matter what Babar Azam does nowadays doesn’t seem to satisfy a certain bunch of people who appear to either be running a personal agenda against him or have been blindfolded to an extent that they are unable to see the reality and appear to be living in some self-created fantasy bubble.

It’s important to take a key note of the fact that Ramiz Raja recently pointed out in his interview with CricWick Exclusive, that Pakistan does not have that big of a queue waiting in line with the same quality as Babar and Rizwan. In other words, our bench strength is not as strong as perhaps India or Australia.

Let’s shed some light onto the recent knocks that have been played by Babar Azam and the narrow route that the critics have found to put some backlash onto him.

In the first match, Pakistan bowlers were plundered all over the ground in Auckland as a result of which they had a mammoth target of 227 ahead. Babar walked in at 1 down after a decent platform was given by Saim Ayub. 

Let’s not forget Babar was batting at No 3 in the concerned format after a very long time and was under pressure after not having the most ideal of Test series Down Under. However, he overcame the odds and despite a slow start for his liking, he managed to accelerate well and ended up with 57 off 35 balls.

In the second T20I, Pakistan again opted to chase and were set another high-target of 195, which may appear to be achievable as compared to the total in the first game.

Pakistan lost both their openers. However, Babar and Fakhar played tremendously well at a good strike rate to take Pakistan out of trouble. Despite impressive show from Babar and Fakhar, Pakistan fell short once again due to negligible support from rest of the batters. 

By the end of this match, the critics were coming at Babar Azam all guns blazing, citing him as the main reason the other players got out, which sounds outrageous.

The third T20I saw Pakistan bowlers being taken to the cleaners yet again as a result of which they conceded 220. The pressure fell on Babar Azam again as the openers failed to give a good start. Yet again, showing a massive improvement in his ball-striking ability, Babar played a magnificent knock in the process of which he scored another half-century. However, this too went in vain as Pakistan failed to provide enough support to Babar to finish the game off.

It is downright comical how people can try to scapegoat someone who’s truly performing in the best possible way to help the team and is in fact a well established T20I great already. Here’s why:

  • Most T20 Centuries after Chris Gayle

  • 3rd Most Runs in T20I history after Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli

  • 939 runs in 2021 are the 4th most runs ever scored by 1 batsman in a calendar year

  • 2nd Most Fifties in the history of T20Is

  • Fastest ever to 3000 T20I Runs

  • 5 Player of the series awards - 2nd Most in T20I History

  • 2nd Most Fours in the History of T20Is

  • 6 Consecutive Fifties In His Last 6 Innings Batting at No.3

He is still far from getting retired which means that the already lucrative records list will extend even further as he propagates towards achieving his destiny of becoming the most prolific T20 batter to ever play the game.

People have been criticizing his strike rate, saying that the method Rizwan and Babar implemented is not sufficient going forward but forget that this is also the same partnership that made us believe that Pakistan can hope to win if they concede 200.

Before these two batsmen, once Pakistan had conceded a target of 200 plus, there used to be little or no hope for a victory. They also hold two of the four highest partnerships in T20 Internationals and are also the pair who helped their side hammer India in the T20 World Cup 2021.

The thing with Pakistan cricket fan base is that most of them are in one way or the other found wanting of recency bias. Whether it is the fanbase of Babar or Shaheen, all it takes is one good game for the innocent fans to forget all the lead-up to that particular game and vice-versa. 

This recency bias that the fans have, has more often than not hurt the players emotionally. The fans have a tendency to forget that at the end of the day, players are human like us, and unless we have clear proof of them not performing up to the required standard intentionally, there’s no need to go so extreme in our criticisms of them. Even the great Sir Donald Bradman got out on nought in his last game so it’s only natural for players to fail.

To conclude, I want some of the critics to take a seat back and enjoy the batsmanship skills of Babar Azam as it unfolds before our very eyes. We all know that he does not come with the in-built ability to hit every ball in the air in a Shahid Afridi-esque way, so we should feel content with the fact that he has been working to improve his scoring rate in the past few years and has shown good results too, the proof of which is attached below.

The table clearly shows that Babar has significantly improved as a power hitter and is on the right track to improve the little short-comings that he has. Let’s hope that he achieves what he has the ability to, Godspeed!