KARACHI: Pakistan’s all-format captain and the top batter Babar Azam has completed one year as the top-ranked ODI batter, today on April 14th 2022.
Following his sensational performance in Pakistan’s famous series win against South Africa in April 2021, scoring 228 runs including a century in the first ODI. The right-handed batter surpassed his then Indian counterpart, Virat Kohli by eight rating points; securing his career-best 865 points.
With his surge to the top spot, Babar ended Virat’s 41-month reign as the top ODI batter, who replaced South Africa’s AB de Villiers in October 2017.
Babar has played six ODIs since claiming the top spot in the ODI batting rankings and has scored 453 runs at an astonishing average of 90.3 with the help of three centuries and a half-century.
In an away three-match ODI series against England in 2021, he scored 177 including his highest individual score of 158 in the third ODI.
The 27-year-old enjoyed another successful ODI series as he piled up runs in the recently concluded home series against Australia. He scored 276 runs at an average of 138 including two centuries and a fifty.
It is pertinent to mention here that Babar became just the fourth Pakistan batsman to attain the top ranking after Zaheer Abbas (1983-84), Javed Miandad (1988-89), and Mohammad Yousuf (2003).
READ: ‘He is Don Bradman or Brian Lara of this era’ Rashid Latif on Babar Azam
