Must be team first: Simon Doull unimpressed by Babar Azam's batting approach

Renowned cricket commentator Simon Doull was left unimpressed with the batting approach of Peshawar Zalmi captain Babar Azam, whose blitz in Wednesday's match earned him the maiden century at Pakistan Super League (PSL) but also the biggest target in the tournament's history. 

Peshawar Zalmi had handed Quetta Gladiators a massive target of 241 runs, but the latter outplayed the yellow storm in 18.2 overs, creating history by pulling off an unbelievable run-chase for the Gladiators. 

On Babar's part, he scored his maiden PSL century against the Gladiators and finished with a 65-ball 115 in the first innings. He reached his fifty with a maximum, taking 32 balls, and 28 more to convert that into a ton.

However, the last 20 runs leading up to his century didn’t come in a free-flowing manner since he was on 80 off 44 at one stage but took 16 more balls to get to the three-figure mark.

When Babar was on 99, he played a dot ball during the over by Naseem Shah, Doull questioned the Pakistan captain’s approach.

“The last little while, that’s all that has been happening rather than looking for boundaries still, when you’ve got so much firepower to come [Mohammad Haris, Haseebullah Khan and all-rounder Aamer Jamal were waiting in the wings],” said Doull during commentary.

“Hundreds are great, stats are brilliant, but it still must be team first.”

Earlier, former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi and Babar’s teammate Imam-ul-Haq also questioned the prolific right-hander’s batting in the shortest format of the game.

“Babar is number one in the world, he is the identity of the country, but one thing that stops him from reaching the AB de Villiers/Virat Kohli rank is finishing. As a match-winner, he hasn’t proved himself yet. If I am wrong, you can correct me. I want him to become a finisher. He should finish games. That’s the thing holding back his class,” Afridi said while speaking on a local news channel.

“I would like to add…because I know him and this is spoken about in our discussions. Babar agrees with it too. He says: ‘I have played enough cricket, I need to bring more dominance and command in my game so that I finish matches and don’t leave them midway’. Lala [Afridi] is absolutely right,” Imam added while agreeing with Afridi’s remarks.

It must be noted that Azam is currently the third-highest run-scorer in the PSL 8 with 343 runs in eight innings at a strike-rate of 140.