3 Reasons Why Babar Azam Will Fail As An Opener In Champions Trophy 2025
Babar Azam is likely to open in Champions Trophy 2025 (Source:@ICC/X.com)
Babar Azam is a key player for Pakistan and is one of the pillars of their batting line-up. The Men in Green depend a lot on his performances and whenever he fails to perform, Pakistan tend to find themselves in trouble. The Champions Trophy 2025 is now around the corner, and all Pakistan fans would be hoping that their star cricketer delivers and make their country proud.
Pakistan are the defending champions and are the hosts of the tournament as well. However, they are the only team now who have not revealed their arsenal for the marquee trophy and lot of reports regarding the make-up of the squad are floating in the media. One of those is that Babar Azam will open in Champions Trophy alongside Fakhar Zaman and it has produced mixed response. In this article, we will look at why the move can backfire for Pakistan and he could end up failing as an opener in Champions Trophy 2025.
1. Less Experience And Poor Performance As Opener In ODIs
Babar Azam has batted in 120 innings for Pakistan in ODIs, and out of those, 104 innings have been at number 3. He has been very successful at that position too, scoring runs at 60.17 while as an opener, he has played just two innings, where he scored 26 runs.
Those innings also came very early in his career, almost a decade back, so neither Babar has an experience nor he has the performances at that position to back his promotion to the top of the order. Also, disturbing him from the position where he has played throughout his career could backfire and could create instability in the batting line-up in a big tournament like Champions Trophy.
2. Babar Azam's Batting Style Not In Sync With Modern-Day Brand Of Cricket
Babar Azam has a great record in ODI cricket, but his strike-rate has been a constant point of discussion. His career strike-rate is 88.21 in the format, but has been guilty of not accelerating enough, and it has led to his criticism multiple times.
In recent times, ODI cricket has changed a lot with advent of T20 format, and teams that have been successful in the format, have adopted ultra-aggressive approach at the top of the order. Pakistan too are trying to fit into that category and having Babar Azam at the top of the order could reverse those efforts.
He might be forced to play out of his style which could end in him not delivering consistently, and it could hamper Pakistan's progress. Aggressive openers at the top followed by a stable batter at number 3 is a strategy many teams are adopting and Pakistan could also benefit from having Babar at 3 where he can play his natural game.
3. Babar Azam's Current Form
Babar Azam has always been a quality ODI player and his average in 2024 is close to his career average. However out of the six innings, two were two not outs which have inflated that average and it is only the second time in his career that the batter has not scored an ODI century in a calendar year. The last time he did not score a hundred in the ODI format was way back in 2015, his first season at the international level.
Also, Babar's strike-rate was pretty low in 2024 - 76.51. It is way below his career strike-rate and in such a situation, asking him to move out of his favoured position can worsen his form. Thus, all these factors point in a direction that experimenting with Babar Azam as an opener in Champions Trophy could prove to be a disaster for Pakistan.
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