Every sportsperson, no matter how great, goes through phases of struggle. It is a cycle that defines careers — the rise, the peak, and the inevitable dip. Pakistan’s star batter Babar Azam is currently in that difficult phase, battling not opponents, but himself.
Form, as the cliché goes, is temporary — class is permanent. Babar’s class has never been in doubt. What is being tested now is his ability to fight through adversity and rediscover the consistency that once made him one of the world’s finest batters.
Form goes away and comes back, and vice versa. It is up to the individual to fight it out and come back stronger.
Without a doubt, Babar Azam is blessed with talent. With it comes performance, followed by a star status. From his early years, he was destined to achieve greatness.
He was compared to the Indian great Virat Kohli. He perched at the top of ICC ODI rankings in April 2021 and maintained his reign for over three consecutive years, finishing as the No. 1 ODI batter consecutively in 2021, 2022, and November 2023. It was a reign of 1356 days!
Babar became a modern-day idol for fans, primarily for Pakistanis. Youthful fans are his die-hard ones. They are not ready to listen to a single word against their hero.
They chant “Babar, Babar” when he comes to the crease. It is so envious that South African spinner Simon Harmer was left bemused in a Test match in Pakistan last year.
“I was surprised when Shan Masood got out, and the fans clapped! I was surprised seeing how excited the crowd was (on a dismissal), but it was because Babar was coming to the crease.”
Babar always gets a noisy and rousing welcome with an “unbelievable” chanting as he walks out, essentially cheering for a wicket to fall to see their hero arrive.
Even a bad patch, a century drought, and sloppy dismissal did not dissuade the crowd from idolizing him. You just tweet something critical about his lack of runs, and you get a mouthful.
Babar’s stocks rose by leaps and bounds. He became Pakistan’s skipper in all three formats, and it was a span from 2019 to the 2023 World Cup.
Pakistan finished as semi-finalists in the T20 World Cup in 2021 and runners-up in 2022. But stars started to lose their fire.
Pakistan crashed out of the 2023 ODI World Cup in the first round. On one format failure, he was forced to step down as skipper of all three formats. Unwisely, he was given the reins of the T20 team for the 2024 World Cup, and his whole world came crashing down.
Pakistan’s loss to India was not surprising, but a defeat to minnows and first-timers USA, was shocking. The year 2024 saw the hero losing one battle after another.
He was again sacked. In October 2024, Babar was dropped from the Test side for the first time since maturing as a top batter. No century flowed from his bat since December 2023, and it has gone 29 innings without a three-figure mark.
His career average of 42.38 went as low as 24.86 in this period. His ODI century drought lasted 83 consecutive innings and 807 days before his unbeaten 102 against Sri Lanka. It equaled the record of Saeed Anwar for most ODI hundreds with 20.
A few months after being ousted from Tests, he was axed from the T20I side. His axing from the Asia Cup 2025 was coupled with a critique from head coach Mike Hesson, indicating his poor strike rate and feeble technique against spinners.
He went to Australia to feature in the Big Bash to regain his mojo. But instead, things got worse. His low strike rate was deemed unsuitable for T20s. But the biggest humiliation came when Steve Smith refused a single and smashed the next over for 30-odd runs.
It was taken as humiliation and much to the chagrin of his fans back home.
Despite no improvement and much to the shock of experts and analysts, Babar was on the plane to Sri Lanka for the T20I World Cup.
The selection committee was not in favour of selecting him. In fact, it became one of the reasons for selector Aleem Dar’s resignation after the team failed to reach the semi-finals.
Then who selected him? It was revealed that Hesson and skipper Salman Agha insisted on Babar’s inclusion and got it done from the chairman Mohsin Naqvi. If it is true, then it hurts the team combination.
To make matters more compounded, Babar was used at number four, which is a needle position to give impetus to a T20I innings. Babar failed miserably and was not sent to bat in the must-win match against Namibia.
The comments that followed from Hesson were like rubbing salt on his wounds. “At that point (Pakistan 107-2 in 13 overs), Babar Azam is not the best person to come in,” Hesson retorted.
“We’ve got plenty of other options who can perform that role towards the end. I think Babar is well aware that his strike rate in the powerplay in this World Cup is under 100, and that’s clearly not the role we think we need,” were harsh but apt remarks from Hesson.
Babar managed just 91 runs in four innings with a highest of 46 and was finally dropped from the Sri Lanka match. It was sad to watch Babar wearing a substitute bib on that Saturday.
Two days after the team returned, Babar became one of the casualties of the World Cup. Dropped for the first time from an ODI squad.
So what is ailing Babar? Former captain Ramiz Raja, and a great supporter of Babar when he was PCB chairman, believes it’s a mental problem.
“It’s more to do with the mind – how can he relax and focus on what is the current challenge before him. It took him ages to get his first hundred.
It is a confidence thing. It can be tough to concentrate on technique and playing out sessions to prepare for Test cricket, and also be engaged in practicing power hitting to reclaim his place in white-ball cricket,” opines Raja.
Babar has not spoken about his tough days. He rarely does, so we never get to know what is ailing him, but batting skill remains Babar’s greatest asset, and that will be with him.
He will never forget how to bat, but he will have to devise ways to get success with the bat. When Kohli was undergoing the same kind of batting hoodoo, it was Babar who sent a message on Twitter, “This shall pass too.”
Now, those same words echo back at him.
Because if cricket history has shown anything, it is this: great players fall, but they rise again.
And Babar Azam still has the class to do just that.
