Despite his immense body of fabulous work, could one say he tends to take out a tenancy agreement with big moments instead of owning them? That might be unfair, but demands on the great often are
Osman Samiuddin22-Oct-20232:06
What’s gone wrong for Babar Azam?
The ball wasn’t as short as you might remember it. It wasn’t as much a half-tracker gimme. It was fuller – a good length actually – and very straight, with some zip off the surface. Also, it was Adam Zampa; so a little respect to the deliverer’s intent and skill please.But still. Here was a moment, a capital M moment in the game that was set up for Babar Azam. Pakistan were 175 for 2, 193 to get from just under 24 overs, on a small ground, a true surface, a lightning outfield and an attack with limited spin options. There’s no cakewalking to a chase of 369 in a World Cup game against Australia ever, but it’s fair to say that last Friday at the Chinnaswamy, with this line-up, was probably Pakistan’s best opportunity for it.Babar was on 18 and this was the third ball he had faced since he hit that ludicrous checked punch through mid-on for four. That was the kind of shot that instantly slices your brain in half, one part wondering about the small stuff like are Australia missing a fielder or two here, and the other big, beautiful things like, is this Babar’s day?Then he cleared his front leg to that Zampa ball, got slightly cramped and pull-whipped to Pat Cummins at midwicket. He could’ve – maybe should’ve – gone over him. He could’ve gone further either side of him. The shot was neither one thing or the other, betwixt and between attacking and milking. More than anything it was a massive anti-climax.Related
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For the second game in a row.Six days earlier, he was on 50 against India in Ahmedabad and Pakistan, 155 for 2, were bubbling. He wasn’t dominating but was set, having taken 24 runs off the previous 15 balls with Mohammad Rizwan. Then he was bowled attempting that dab to deep third, the release shot that he plays unusually late and fine.Those two dismissals are primarily part of an underwhelming run of scores at the World Cup from a batter who is, by official ranking at the time of writing, the world’s best in ODIs. In order, that is 5, 10, 50 and 18, the frustration amplified by the manner of dismissal in each case: out pulling spin to midwicket twice, a leg-side strangle and a failed dab. These are not, I promise, Fortnite moves.Shots like the perfect cover drive make you wonder: Is this Babar Azam’s day?•AFP/Getty ImagesThere’s no real pattern to it other than the obvious pattern that shows he’s getting out for not too much. He’s been dismissed by an offspinner, a left-arm fast bowler, a right-arm fast bowler and a legspinner. He hasn’t visibly struggled in any of the innings (other than perhaps the first against Netherlands).There’s probably something in a recent and prolonged downturn against spin. He averages 46.53 against it since the start of 2022 (and 39 in 2023) with a low strike rate of 70. Until 2022, he was averaging 74.53 and striking at nearly 82 against it. He has fallen to spin 39 times in the last two years; he fell to it 47 times in the six-plus years before that since his debut. Until this year he’d been stumped once in his entire ODI career. In 2023, he’s been stumped four times and it’s worth registering that only once has he been out charging at the spinner.The trend is significant but, in the bigger picture of the batter he is, still a little low-grade.Instead, this being a World Cup by which the big names are (unfairly) judged, there’s this nagging half-sense of a half-formed, circumstantial theory that might not even bear proper analytical scrutiny and is one that requires a pre-emptory spelling out of what it is not. This is not #ZimBabar. Few batters can have produced the body of work that he has, across formats, against quality attacks, against difficult conditions and perilous situations. That kind of work can’t be hurt by a hashtag.But think back to some of the game’s greatest modern batters and how part of their reputations were built on owning precisely these occasions and moments within them, the kind of situations Babar found himself in here. Arriving at a solid foundation, ripping it up as wholly unambitious and building a skyscraper out of it; skipping into a skyscraper of a chase like it’s a couple of steps up to the front porch; surveying a wreck and creating a masterpiece.Think back to early peak Tendulkar, to early peak Kohli, to Ponting, to Lara and remember how they could tear into these moments, impose some big alpha energy. The response would be to attack and pause only to attack harder. The memory no doubt exaggerates these traits more than reality and data recorded it, but it is exaggeration, not mistruth.From the dismissals to Zampa and Mohammed Siraj in Ahmedabad, by contrast, you could draw out a broader equivocation in Babar’s game, a hedging against the more attacking, risk-taking, domineering approach that his game has the tools for and has exhibited, with the low-risk, high-functioning accumulator that he already is. It kind of bleeds through in those stumpings: not fully committing to the charge and yet getting stumped anyway. Especially when he’s come off the back of a couple of failures, to an in-match crisis, to a total to build on, it feels as if Babar’s default option invariably is the conservative one. Come to a moment and sign a tenancy agreement with it instead of owning it.There’s no real pattern to Babar Azam’s dismissals other than the obvious pattern that shows he’s getting out for not too much•ICC/Getty ImagesIt’s all a very arguable and feelsy way of looking at what is a slight dip in productivity, especially in this matrix world where behind the screens increasingly complex and nuanced coding is running everything. Babar still averages 47 in Tests, 43 in T20s and 56 in ODIs, so what guff is this about not owning moments?Plus sizing up risks is exactly what has made him so successful and given he is captain now – and a Pakistan captain at that – building in more risk-aversion is a pre-requisite. Not every great batter has an outsized personality to impose on an occasion, as Kane Williamson might argue (or his fans will, given that Kane Williamson will never knowingly praise Kane Williamson).Yet, put together this World Cup so far with the last two T20 World Cups and there’s one Babar innings of note across the two, the 68 not out in the 152-0. The other abiding memory is of another hedged innings, in the 2021 semi-final against Australia (and another Zampa dismissal).If all of this sounds unfair, then yes, it totally is. That is the price of being as good as Babar is, as great as he can be and of greatness generally. It’s relentless.Scored a hundred yesterday? Why haven’t you scored one today?Won a title last year? Been a year since you won one then.Oh, you won? Great. Shame you didn’t do it in enough style.Scored a great, coming-of-age hundred, on a hellish pitch, against a hellish attack, to keep an improbable (and ultimately doomed) semi-final run alive? Totally owned that moment, did you?Sure. Four years ago. About time for another.
