Babar Azam

Mohammad Babar Azam (born 15 October 1994), is a Pakistani international cricketer and the former captain of the Pakistan national cricket team in all formats.

He is widely regarded as one of the finest batters in contemporary world cricket.

Babar Azam was born on 15 October 1994 into a Punjabi Muslim family in the Walled City of Lahore, and recalls the memories of "playing cricket and roaming around like a free bird in those streets."

His older first cousins (through his elder paternal uncle) Kamran and Umar Akmal were the reason he was attracted to cricket, and their stories inspired him to take up cricket as his profession.

He had been a ball boy at Gaddafi Stadium before joining a cricket academy and starting his domestic cricket career there.

He was present during the home series Pakistan played between 2006 and 2008.

He sought guidance from Rana Sadiq, his first coach, who taught him the fundamentals of batting.

Later, he went on to be a part of the Pakistan U-19(under 19) setup.

He is presently the only cricketer in the world to be in the top 10 rankings across all formats and is currently ranked as the number one batter in ODIs, 4th in T20Is and 5th in Tests.

A right-handed top-order batter, he captains Peshawar Zalmi in the PSL.

With 42 wins, he is the joint most successful T20I captain of all time.

He is Pakistan's most prolific T20I batter and his maiden T20I century of 122, which he scored against South Africa, is the highest current individual score by a Pakistani, in the format.

He also remains the only captain to take Pakistan to the number 1 ODI team rankings.

In May 2015, Babar was included in the Pakistani ODI squad for home series against Zimbabwe.

He made his ODI debut in the third ODI on 31 May and scored an impressive fifty scoring 54 runs off 60 balls.

His impressive debut earned him a place in both Test and ODI squads selected for an away series against Sri Lanka.

He was not selected to play in the Test series.

During the ODI series, he only scored 37 runs in the two matches that he played.

Babar was included in the squad for the away ODI series against Zimbabwe in September 2015.

He was retained in the ODI squad for the home series against England.

In the first ODI of the four match series he scored 62 not out with a strike rate of 100 which helped Pakistan win the match.

He had scores of 4, 22 and 51 in next three matches respectively.

He finished the series with 139 runs at an average of 46.33.

In January 2016, Pakistan toured New Zealand.

In the first ODI match, Babar scored 62 runs off 76 balls.

Pakistan lost the match by 70 runs.

He was the leading run scorer in the ODI series with 145 runs in 2 innings at an average of 72.50.

In the five-match ODI series against England in July, he batted in five games and only scored 122 runs.

He made his Twenty20 International debut for Pakistan against England on 7 September.

He scored an unbeaten 15 runs off 11 balls.

Pakistan won the match and series.

Besides the England series, Pakistan played two match ODI series against Ireland.

In the first ODI of the series, Pakistan beat Ireland by 255 runs and created record of their biggest win in terms of runs in an ODI.

Babar contributed in his side's victory by scoring 29 runs.

With the second and final ODI abandoned due to rain, Pakistan won the series 1–0.

Babar Azam was selected in the home series against the West Indies in 2016.

In the first match of the ODI series he scored his maiden international century, scoring 120 off 131 balls and winning his first man of the match award.

In the second ODI, he scored another century, this time scoring 123 off 126 balls, and helping Pakistan to put up a total of more than 330.

Azam was a member of the Pakistan team that won the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.

In November 2023, Azam resigned from captaincy in all formats after the 2023 Cricket World Cup in India.