Cricketers of the Week: April 9th – April 15th

Babar Azam: Pakistan’s boy-wonder

While the IPL is slowly simmering into an exciting tournament this year, with a lot of close finishes, already notching up a string of good performances, the two international games this year weren’t so bereft of action either. In fact, three out of the five top performances this week have been picked up from the two ODIs between Pakistan and West Indies.

There were numerous IPL performances that dazzled our senses this week as well, such as the bowling performances of Rashid Khan, Krunal Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar and the batting performances of Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, Kieron Pollard, Gautam Gambhir and AB de Villiers. However, giving precedence to international games over IPL matches only seemed fair and logical.

Pakistan’s ODI line-up proved to be a little too hot to handle for West Indies and rightly so after they came from a game down to take the series 2-1.

#1 Babar Azam

Azam is being touted as Pakistan’s next big thing and he is showing why. One of the fastest ODI batsmen to 1000 runs, he showed his class with a 132-ball 125 having walked in at 16 for 1 in the second ODI against West Indies, in Guyana. His innings that had seven fours and three sixes ensured Pakistan posted an impressive 282 in their 50 overs, with Imad Wasim (another impressive young all-rounder) the next highest scorer with a 35-ball 43.

The icing on the cake was the fact that he was unbeaten guiding Pakistan to a good score.

Babar added 69 for the third wicket with Hafeez. And then after a minor blip which saw them rile at 128 for 4, when Pakistan were in a spot of bother, steadied the ship by adding 55 for the fifth wicket with Sarfraz Ahmed, who was at the helm in an interesting move for the future of Pakistan cricket.

Imad and Babar gave the innings the vital push that it needed, adding 99 for the sixth wicket, unbeaten, in 68 balls. West Indies were all out for 208 conceding a 74-run victory to Pakistan. Babar picked the Player of the Match. This was the 22-year old’s fifth century in just 26 innings, with his ODI average at a very impressive 55.