The captain of the Pakistan cricket team, Babar Azam, turned 29 on Sunday and is celebrating his birthday in India as he is currently leading the Green Shirts in the ongoing ICC World Cup 2023.
Pakistan’s pacer Hasan Ali’s daughter presented Azam a bucket of flowers on his 29th birthday, after which he thanked the little girl by hugging her.
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After making his debut against Zimbabwe in 2015 in Lahore, Babar has changed the fortunes of Pakistan cricket as the team which was recognised due to their batting failures have now turned into a match-winning outfit.
Calling Azam the key to Pakistan's success in the recent past would not be wrong on any level as he not only led this side to number one rank in ODIs but also performed consistently with the bat — with many records broken and some still to break.
It was also under his captaincy Pakistan became the number-one team in ODI cricket for the first time in history.
Until now, the 29-year-old represented Pakistan in 264 matches over all three formats and has amassed a total of 12,731 runs at an impressive 49.15 average.
He is also one of the very few batters in the world to have a century in all three formats. His high score in Test cricket is 196, which came against the mighty Australia as he stood till the last day and helped Pakistan avoid a defeat in March 2022.
His high score in ODI is 158, which he scored against England in July 2021 in Birmingham. In T20I, his high score is 122, which came against South Africa in April 2021.
It must be noted that Azam is currently leading the Pakistani side in the World Cup and the Green Shirts have played three matches till now, winning two and losing one.
On Saturday, they were handed a seven-wicket loss against India after the Blues chased down the target of 192 in the 31st over.
Schedule of Pakistan’s remaining round matches
October 20 - vs Australia in Bengaluru
October 23 - vs Afghanistan in Chennai
October 27 - vs South Africa in Chennai
October 31 - vs Bangladesh in Kolkata
November 4 - vs New Zealand Bengaluru (Day match)
November 11 - vs England in Kolkata
Pakistan squad for ICC World Cup 2023
Babar Azam (c), Abdullah Shafique, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Iftikhar Ahmed, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, M Wasim Jnr, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Saud Shakeel, Salman Ali Agha.
Travelling reserves: Mohammad Haris, Abrar Ahmed, Zaman Khan
- Babar Azam