Pakistan are heading in a new direction to overcome the dependence on Babar Azam
As Pakistan entered into a new era of white-ball cricket under Salman Agha (currently T20I skipper), they have made new additions to their batting line-up that had looked vulnerable for a while.
Their humiliating Champions Trophy 2025 exit in the group stage as well as their poor performances in the 2024 T20 World Cup have forced the selectors to bring in young players with potential for the future.
While some of the newcomers have impressed with their different skillsets, there seems to be a clear vision to move on from the dependence on Babar Azam.
Babar, who seemed to be burdened with a lot of expectations on him, struggled for runs in the last three years in the white-ball formats. With the new generation of top-order batters playing few crucial knocks, it is expected that there will be a time in the near future when the mercurial batter calls time on his career.
If that happens, Pakistan will have three players ready to take his place in the batting order. Here are three players who will be ready to replace Babar Azam in the white-ball formats.
The youngster’s international debut will be remembered for a long time. After starting with two ducks against New Zealand, Nawaz blasted a 45-ball 105 not out in his third innings that helped Pakistan mow down a steep target of 205 with four overs remaining and with nine wickets in hand. This clearly set the tone for his budding international career where he has amassed 339 runs from 14 T20I innings at a superb strike rate of 175. His ascension in the shortest format in Babar Azam’s opening slot has already happened.
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He impressed on his ODI debut against West Indies with an unbeaten 63 off 54 balls in the first ODI that took Pakistan to victory while batting at No.6. His ability to rotate the strike and get the boundaries with ease, will put him in contention for the No.3 spot sooner or later.
To be sweating over a newcomer’s injury before a big tournament like the Champions Trophy shows how important Saim Ayub has become to Pakistan in his short career. The 23-year-old already has an average of 58 after 10 ODIs, with a big half century in Australia, a century in Zimbabwe and two hundreds on bouncy South African pitches shows that he is a big-match player Pakistan have been searching for. In T20Is as well, Ayub has been consistent with three big fifties and more than seven 30-plus scores at a strike rate of 137. Even though he is not the biggest striker of the ball, he can anchor innings across both formats in white-ball cricket while batting the top-four.
Sometimes players develop a knack to win matches on a consistent basis much later in their career and Sahibzada Farhan is one of them. The 29-year-old was brought back from his international exile last year and has clearly worked his way to become Pakistan’s match-winner over the last few months. Farhan has scored three big fifties from his last six T20Is which took his team to easy victories against Bangladesh and West Indies. Even though Pakistan didn’t make big changes in personnel in their ODI squad, the Islamabad United top-order deserves a chance in the 50-over format. He has an average of 41 from 72 List A games at a healthy strike rate of 85 which includes 20 fifties and eight hundreds.
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