Even as Pakistan returned to winning ways with a 7-wicket win over Bangladesh in Kolkata, their captain Babar Azam continued his struggles with the bat in the tournament. Babar Azam now stands under threat of underperforming in the World Cup 2023 despite having entered into the competition as the number 1 ranked ICC ODI batsman.
Openers Abdullah Shafique and Fakhar Zaman made the chase of 204 runs easy with their partnership of 128 runs in 20 overs. Babar Azam came with a platform set and the chase in the pocket and needed to bat through the chase at a good strike rate to improve Pakistan’s NRR as they mathematically remain alive in the semi-final race.
However, Babar Azam, after hitting a classy cover drive, aided by a misfield, managed to score only 9 runs in 16 balls and was dismissed by Mehidy Hasan Miraz. Babar Azam tried to hit Miraz for a six down the ground, by stepping down and taking on the off-spinner’s challenge. However, the Pakistani captain was caught at long-on comfortably, well inside the boundary line, by Mahmudullah.
This ended Babar’s innings and sparked a memefest on Twitter as Babar continued his failures in the tournament. Babar Azam has scored only 216 runs in 7 innings at an average of 30 and strike rate of 77.
Memes on Babar Azam after his low score against Bangladesh:
Earlier, the Pakistan bowlers produced their best bowling performance today by dismissing Bangladesh for only 204 runs. Shaheen Afridi was the wrecker in chief with figures of 3/23 while Mohammad Wasim Jr also took 3 wickets, all of the tailenders. Haris Rauf took 2 wickets, while Iftikhar Ahmed and Usama Mir bagged a wicket each.
In reply, it was left-hander Fakhar Zaman, who returned to the side for Imam-ul-Haq, who charged in the chase with his cracking knock of 81 runs in 74 balls. Shafique scored 68 runs in 69 balls.
Zaman said: “Today, my hard work paid off after I was given a chance. I told Abdullah that I will see off the first few overs, I knew I could hit big sixes. My role is to make it easy for my partner, so it was important to see off the first few overs and then play my shots. NRR was in our mind after we reached 100, the aim was to finish it off in 30 overs.”
