Travis Head, Babar Azam, Sikandar Raza and Arshdeep Singh have been nominated for ICC Men’s T20 Cricketer of the Year award. But it’s Babar’s nomination that has surprised fans. During the period taken into consideration, Babar scored 738 runs from 24 matches at an average of 33.54 with a top score of 75 not out against Ireland back in May at The Village in Dublin.
Babar had a mediocre campaign in the T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the United States of America, where Pakistan crashed out after the group stage. He got scores of 44, 13, 33 and 32 not out, but could not step on the gas at the right time. Former Indian batter Virender Sehwag went on to say that Babar did not deserve a place in Pakistan’s T20I team.
“Babar Azam is not a player who will hit sixes. He only hits sixes when he is set and spinners are operating. I have never seen him using his feet to fast bowlers or hitting sixes over the covers; it’s not his game as he plays safe cricket by hitting on the ground. So, he consistently scores runs and his strike-rate isn’t great,” Sehwag had told Cricbuzz.
Babar is nine runs short of overtaking Rohit Sharma as the leading run-scoring in T20Is. In 128 T20Is, the former Pakistan captain has racked up 4223 runs at an average of 39.83 and a strike-rate of 129.22 with three hundreds and 36 fifties to show for his efforts.
Fans believed that the likes of Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah, who were both a part of India’s T20 World Cup team, should have been nominated in place of Babar.
One of the fans wrote, “This has to be joke of the year; Babar Azam is getting nomination over Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, what’s wrong with you ICC.”
“Babar Azam? What did he do?” wrote another fan.
