Pakistan captain Babar Azam continues to grow with time across formats, but especially in white-ball cricket after his stunning series against the West Indies. He has already 17 ODI hundreds and five Test hundreds to his name and is expected to smash more in future as well. He even earned praises from the cricketing fraternity, including former New Zealand pacer Simon Doull.

While commentating on air during Day 3 of the third Test between England and New Zealand, Doull said: “Not too many can argue that Babar Azam is probably the best player in the world at the moment. As far as batting in that top order is concerned, he is unbelievable. Joe Root has got an argument for that, but when you talk about the Big-4, at the moment, he is the big one.”

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On the other hand, former West Indies cricketer Ian Bishop has also praised the way Babar Azam has progressed in his career. While speaking to Cricwick, Bishop stated that while the 27-year-old batter wasn’t already a ‘great’, he has almost overtaken the height of former India captain and one of the best batters of recent time – Virat Kohli in ODIs. However, Pakistan will next play a couple of Tests away against Sri Lanka, which is all set to begin on July 16.

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He said: “Babar Azam is on the road to greatness. I want to be clear when I say ‘on the road to…’, in the white-ball cricket at least, and certainly in fifty overs. I don’t use the term ‘great’ loosely. It has to be a bigger sample size to bestow greatness on a player, but his average, as we speak now, (is) on the cusp on 60 with 17 ODI hundreds. He has almost overtaken his next door neighbour, the great Virat Kohli, in terms of the ultimate uber fifty-over batsman.”