Pakistan vs Australia: Ricky Ponting praises, Babar Azam set to become World No.1 Test batsman ahead of Australia Tour of Pakistan-2022

Highlights:

  • Pakistan vs Australia test series will kick-start on March 04th-2022 in Rawalpindi.
  • Ricky Ponting praises, Babar Azam set to become world no.1 test batsman.
  • He also talks about Shaheen Shah Afridi who is a ICC Awards winner of the year-2021.

Pakistan vs Australia series-2022:

The Australian cricket team is scheduled to tour Pakistan in March and April-2022 to play three tests, three ODI’s and three T20I matches. The test series will form part of the ICC World Test Championship and ODI series will form part of the inaugural of ICC Cricket World Cup Super League-2020-23. It has been scheduled to begin on March 04th-2022 and ends on April 05th-2022.

Babar Azam set to become World No.1 test batsman – Ricky Ponting:

Babar Azam will lead Pakistan when they play Australia later this year in Pakistan. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has released a new schedule of Australia’s tour to Pakistan. The tourists will arrive in Islamabad on February.

Meanwhile, former Australian Captain Ricky Ponting has said that Pakistan skipper Babar Azam will soon become the number one ranked Test batter in the world as he has all the desired qualities. He said that Azam is a good white-ball batsman and it is just a matter of time before he starts dominating Test cricket. Azam is currently ranked ninth in the ICC Test rankings.

Ponting recalled the first time when he saw Babar Azam when Pakistan toured Australia in 2019. He scored a century (104 runs) in the second innings of the first Test in Brisbane and 90 runs in the second Test at Adelaide. Though the knock could not help his team win, it made a lasting impression on Ponting’s mind.

On ICC’s Review Show, Ricky Ponting said, “Babar Azam is the same as Shaheen. I don’t get to see a lot of these guys outside of when they tour Australia, but when I saw Babar in the second innings in Brisbane in the first Test against Australia, some of the shots that I saw him play on a fast bouncy Brisbane pitch – both on the front and back foot – against Hazlewood, Starc and Cummins – it was like, I have heard a lot about him and I have seen a fair bit of his while-ball stuff, but this guy is the real deal”.

He also added, “He’s a beautiful player, simple as that. The thing I always look for with these younger type of batters is if they can play well off the back foot in Australia, and particularly through the off-side with a straight bat – which is probably an area that Joe Root hasn’t quite got on top of just yet and why he hasn’t made those big scores in Australia”.

He signed off by saying, “He (Babar Azam) has been great in T20I cricket in the past as well, hasn’t he? His white-ball cricket has been nothing short of breathtakingly good for the last four-five years. I think I said then that for this guy, the sky is the limit. It’s only a matter of time I felt before he was going to be either the No.1-ranked Test batter in the world or certainly challenging for it. He’s probably challenging for that position right now and probably if he had played a few more Test matches through the last couple of years he’d be knocking the door down for that”.

Ponting praises – Shaheen Shah Afridi:

Shaheen Shah Afridi was recently named the Sir Garfield Sobers’ Trophy winner for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year-2021. A two-time winner of the Sir Garfield Sobers’ Trophy for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year himself, Ponting called Afridi ‘a complete package’, and commended his ability to swing the ball at pace.   

Ponting told Isa Guha on the first episode of ICC Review Show:

“The only thing I am disappointed with is it is not a batter -– how can these awards go to a fast bowler and not a batter? In all honesty, absolutely very well deserved. It’s an awesome achievement. Now with him, Babar, and some of the other fantastic players they’ve got in that Pakistan line-up at the moment it makes for a really mouth-watering series coming up when the Aussies go there.”

Recalling Afridi’s last tour of Australia in 2019 when he scalped just five wickets in two matches, the Aussie said: “He had a really good tour to Australia a couple of summers ago and you could see then -– he’s tall, obviously bowls fast, he had the ability to swing the new ball back into the right-handers as well… it looked like a really complete package that we hadn’t quite seen the best of yet.”

He added, “We had to do some stuff in a commentary this summer to pick out the top five batters and bowlers, and he wasn’t actually in my top five bowlers then, because he hadn’t played much Test cricket when we picked it. He was someone I brought up at No.6 because I knew about the amount of work, wickets, and great games he had behind him coming into December when we picked those groups.”

Babar Azam – About:

Babar Azam is a right-handed batsman. He finished 2021 with 405 runs that came at an average of 67.50. His knock of 158, though coming in a losing cause, was a lesson in building an ODI innings. Taking 72 balls to bring up his fifty, he put his foot on the accelerator in the second half of the innings, finishing with a career-best score that came in just 139 balls. He won the ICC Men’s ODI cricketer of the year award-2021.

Both Azam and Afridi were at the top of their game in 2021, playing a vital role in Pakistan’s sensational run into the semi-finals of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

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