Is Babar Azam the most overrated batsman since 2000?

[Dil Dil India]

Somebody needs to tweet it out to someone with a lot of followers that this dimwit Babar averages 38 excluding 2 grounds in Karachi and Pindi.

[jf1gp_1]

Was listening to a podcast and again Babar Azam is talented our hope blah blah. I can't remember a game changing innings from him for a long time. Now someone will jump on that 10 wicket win in T20 WC, sure they won credit to them but let's be honest if India had batted first we would have done something similar on that water world of ground thanks to dew.

[vvvslaxman]

5 minutes ago, jf1gp_1 said:

Was listening to a podcast and again Babar Azam is talented our hope blah blah. I can't remember a game changing innings from him for a long time. Now someone will jump on that 10 wicket win in T20 WC, sure they won credit to them but let's be honest if India had batted first we would have done something similar on that water world of ground thanks to dew.

Text book statpadder

[jf1gp_1]

4 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

Text book statpadder

I watched the highlights of that game and was surprised how work team had done to keep the ball dry. 

[vvvslaxman]

1 minute ago, jf1gp_1 said:

I watched the highlights of that game and was surprised how work team had done to keep the ball dry. 

yea.. story of the entire world cup. Unlike win for Australia. 

[Ultimate_Game]

45 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

Text book statpadder

 

He's not even a stat-padder. He has one Test hundred in SENA! Just one! The same amount which Agarkar and Kumble have 

 

As for ODIs the less said the better. Forget Kohli and Rohit, even likes of KL Rahul and Gill has played more impactful innings than Babar. I wouldn't even go to T20s as likes of Samson, Dube, and Tilak wipe the floor with him 

[vvvslaxman]

15 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

He's not even a stat-padder. He has one Test hundred in SENA! Just one! The same amount which Agarkar and Kumble have 

 

As for ODIs the less said the better. Forget Kohli and Rohit, even likes of KL Rahul and Gill has played more impactful innings than Babar. I wouldn't even go to T20s as likes of Samson, Dube, and Tilak wipe the floor with him 

Statpadded against 2nd string team and minnows. Until someone overtakes his total t20 runs his fans will be holding on to it.

[Ultimate_Game]

1 minute ago, vvvslaxman said:

Statpadded against 2nd string team and minnows. Until someone overtakes his total t20 runs his fans will be holding on to it.

 

I would call such a player minnow-basher. Stat padder means that the player can perform against better opponents but lack the impact or performances in crunch matches. Likes of Amla, KL Rahul, Gill and even Kohli in ODIs are stat-padders. They have performed against full strength teams though fell short in big matches or didn't take their team to the cup.

 

But Babar hasn't even done that. He has only played against likes of Zim, B'desh, Ireland, Nepal etc. or C sides from established nations when they send their main players to IPL or rest them. If the top teams had sent their best players to play against Pak, Babar would've failed their as well. The only notable performance in Babar's entire career is the 100 he made while chasing 240 against NZ in 2019 WC. Take that out and he has nothing to show.

 

Pak did their best to biggy up Babar so they can have a player to compete against Kohli. It's similar to Pak debuting a so called 14 year old in 90s just because India had debuted Tendulkar as a 16 year old. I can guarantee if India debuts Suryavanshi as a teenager, you'll see a "teenager" debut from Pakistan just to show to awaam that they're not lagging behind India.

 

Their whole cricketing system is India centric and irony is that's the reason they suck. India improved coz they admitted they had a problem in 2022 and decided they needed to be more aggressive after losing to Eng in that 2022 WT20 SF. And they decided to go with batting depth till 8 after the 2023 ODI WC debacle. India learned their lessons from those defeats and decided to address those gaps. Whereas Pak's whole approach is to create an illusion that they can compete with India and simply want to beat India, while India is looking to compete against likes of Aus, SA, Eng, NZ and win everywhere.

[Tillu]

Even his Test average of 42 is too flattering. It will come down to mid 30s if he plays against top side and his ODI average too needs to come down to early 40s.

[Sean Bradley]

If he was an Indian, would he ever make it to the Indian test or ODI Team? The answere is a resounding NO, He is a Manoj Tiwari level talent, on the other hand of if Manish Pandey was a Pakistani, he would have already been a Pakistani hall of famer. 

[Manucrick]

1 hour ago, Sean Bradley said:

If he was an Indian, would he ever make it to the Indian test or ODI Team? The answere is a resounding NO, He is a Manoj Tiwari level talent, on the other hand of if Manish Pandey was a Pakistani, he would have already been a Pakistani hall of famer. 

Still Manoj Tiwari better fc cricketer than babur 

[vvvslaxman]

Pakistan after Imran khan didn't have many superstars. Wasim was popular. Not the superstar like Imran. In the 90s/00s despite Akram was being popular the real superstars were three other guys. Those 3 are eternal super stars.  Tendulkar, Warne, Lara. After that the next global star was MSD followed by Kohli. For pakistan  Lala was the real super star after Imran khan despite his clownery brainfades. Every time India had a superstar they tried to build their own.  When Kohli came in there was nobody on the Pakistan side. They found this accumulator zimbabar.. They started building up his image using social media.  After beating Indian his stock rose 10 times. In a weird way that was kind of starting their real downfall.

Edited March 19 by vvvslaxman

[Manucrick]

3 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

Pakistan after Imran khan didn't have many superstars. Wasim was popular. Not the superstar like Imran. In the 90s/00s despite Akram was being popular the real superstars were three other guys. Those 3 are eternal super stars.  Tendulkar, Warne, Lara. After that the next global star was MSD followed by Kohli. For pakistan  Lala was the real super star after Imran khan despite his clownery brainfades. Every time India had a superstar they tried to build their own.  When Kohli came in there was nobody on the Pakistan side. They found this accumulator zimbabar.. They started building up his image using social media.  After beating Indian his stock rose 10 times. In a weird way that was kind of starting their real downfall.

Overhype destroyed him Babar is less talented than Ahmed Shehzad

[sage]

He was so humiliated at the BBL like no player I’ve ever seen. I have started to feel bad for him

[tapandrun]

The phenomena is same Babar(Bobzy the KING)= Gill (The Prince) .  Players doing barely good in one format that too vs depleted opp./b/c/d level sides.

And then boards trying to use it as way to push such player in all format and trying to make them look like real top players of Intnl cricket<-- Trying to create superstar

 

Its all about trying to make a superstar rather the player themselves  proving they are super stars by performing big vs big opp. 

 

When Babar 1st came on the intnl scene, he was seen as another new player/batter coming from sc, asd was talked about.

He was good and talented, no obvious flaws in technique. Kind of similar to all top order batter. 

Now normally what would have happened was after getting chances vs lower ranked sided/b/c/d level sides, player would have played vs top sides vs full strength sides and some flaws would have appeared and after few games/series would have been dropped and asked to fix all those things. But that never happened to Babar. He kept playing vs depleted sides/b/c/d sides/lower ranked sides. And once he started playing vs top sides they started to work him out and in few games he was sorted by opp. sides and now that there was data available the lower ranked sides also implemented those thing vs babar and he started failing.

 

It happened too late in his career that there was an issue of sending him back to domestic and asking him to work he already was the King/Superstar.

He is dated with his stroke play, kind of have only 2 shots ::: Cover driver and the drive pull he plays , opp. team either does not bowl him driving lengths or keep 2 fielders there and hence he can nt score any runs. He is not good vs spin or some1 bowling 140+kmph.

 

Babar is not a t20 batter, He has scored most of his Odi runs vs weaker opp. and still to prove him in test , same thing can be said about Gill. 

 

[tapandrun]

13 hours ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

I would call such a player minnow-basher. Stat padder means that the player can perform against better opponents but lack the impact or performances in crunch matches. Likes of Amla, KL Rahul, Gill and even Kohli in ODIs are stat-padders. They have performed against full strength teams though fell short in big matches or didn't take their team to the cup.

 

But Babar hasn't even done that. He has only played against likes of Zim, B'desh, Ireland, Nepal etc. or C sides from established nations when they send their main players to IPL or rest them. If the top teams had sent their best players to play against Pak, Babar would've failed their as well. The only notable performance in Babar's entire career is the 100 he made while chasing 240 against NZ in 2019 WC. Take that out and he has nothing to show.

 

Pak did their best to biggy up Babar so they can have a player to compete against Kohli. It's similar to Pak debuting a so called 14 year old in 90s just because India had debuted Tendulkar as a 16 year old. I can guarantee if India debuts Suryavanshi as a teenager, you'll see a "teenager" debut from Pakistan just to show to awaam that they're not lagging behind India.

 

Their whole cricketing system is India centric and irony is that's the reason they suck. India improved coz they admitted they had a problem in 2022 and decided they needed to be more aggressive after losing to Eng in that 2022 WT20 SF. And they decided to go with batting depth till 8 after the 2023 ODI WC debacle. India learned their lessons from those defeats and decided to address those gaps. Whereas Pak's whole approach is to create an illusion that they can compete with India and simply want to beat India, while India is looking to compete against likes of Aus, SA, Eng, NZ and win everywhere.

Even that innings was not much of modern day odi innings, it was a modest target of 239 runs. Babar scored a ton in 125 balls , pak won in 50th over. 

Haris sohil played much needed ~70 run innings in 75-78 balls. 

[Ultimate_Game]

42 minutes ago, tapandrun said:

The phenomena is same Babar(Bobzy the KING)= Gill (The Prince) .  Players doing barely good in one format that too vs depleted opp./b/c/d level sides.

And then boards trying to use it as way to push such player in all format and trying to make them look like real top players of Intnl cricket<-- Trying to create superstar

 

Its all about trying to make a superstar rather the player themselves  proving they are super stars by performing big vs big opp. 

 

When Babar 1st came on the intnl scene, he was seen as another new player/batter coming from sc, asd was talked about.

He was good and talented, no obvious flaws in technique. Kind of similar to all top order batter. 

Now normally what would have happened was after getting chances vs lower ranked sided/b/c/d level sides, player would have played vs top sides vs full strength sides and some flaws would have appeared and after few games/series would have been dropped and asked to fix all those things. But that never happened to Babar. He kept playing vs depleted sides/b/c/d sides/lower ranked sides. And once he started playing vs top sides they started to work him out and in few games he was sorted by opp. sides and now that there was data available the lower ranked sides also implemented those thing vs babar and he started failing.

 

It happened too late in his career that there was an issue of sending him back to domestic and asking him to work he already was the King/Superstar.

He is dated with his stroke play, kind of have only 2 shots ::: Cover driver and the drive pull he plays , opp. team either does not bowl him driving lengths or keep 2 fielders there and hence he can nt score any runs. He is not good vs spin or some1 bowling 140+kmph.

 

Babar is not a t20 batter, He has scored most of his Odi runs vs weaker opp. and still to prove him in test , same thing can be said about Gill. 

 

 

I'm very scared about BCCI's insistence on making Gill a star despite performances. There's no reason to anoint any player a star but BCCI loves doing it.

[tapandrun]

13 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

I'm very scared about BCCI's insistence on making Gill a star despite performances. There's no reason to anoint any player a star but BCCI loves doing it.

Gill is 3rd iteration of this ,before gill they tried doing the same with KL and Rishab too.

 

Before them all the players had to work for it and had to prove themselves. 

[Ultimate_Game]

35 minutes ago, tapandrun said:

Gill is 3rd iteration of this ,before gill they tried doing the same with KL and Rishab too.

 

Before them all the players had to work for it and had to prove themselves. 

 

If they need to find a star, go with Bumrah. He's the true star! But Indian cricket is so big that they don't need to manufacture stars. The last 3 years have shown that if the team does well and wins tourneys, fans will support Indian cricket. That's what the focus should be - winning tourneys instead of biggying up stars like Gill.

[crictime]

Babar Azam - 43.38

Gautam Gambhir - 41.95

Rohit Sharma - 40.57

 

Opening against pace bowlers in test is tougher than batting at No.3. The odd extra runs that Babar Azam scores in comparison to Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir, does not makes him any better than them. The extra runs doesnt say much as Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma are not considered top class test batsman. By the end of Babar Azam's test career, he could well average less than both.