ICC Declares Babar Azam As Player Of The Month

Babar Azam got the award and left West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite and Australian skipper Pat Cummins behind in the ranking.

DUBAI: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-April 11^th, 2022) The International cricket Council (ICC) has declared Babar Azam as player of the month after a brilliant performance during the Pakistan-Australia series.

Babar Azam got the award and left West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite and Australian skipper Pat Cummins behind in the ranking.

Babar Azam continued his brilliant performance throughout March, with his superb 196 in the second Test against Australia in Karachi and became the first player to win the ICC Men’s Player of the Month award on two occasions, having won the title in April 2021.

Babar Azam, in the recently concluded Benaud-Qadir Trophy, finished as the third-highest run-scorer after Usman Khawaja and Abdullah Shafique. He scored 390 runs at an average of 78, including two half-centuries and a century in his five outings.

The highlight of the series was his match-saving 196 in the second innings of the second Test in Karachi.

The Pakistani captain continued his outstanding form in the ODI series, playing vital knocks in the first two games. In the first ODI, he notched up a score of 57 in Pakistan's 88-run loss before scoring a brilliant 118 to lead Pakistan to a six-wicket win in the second contest.

Former West Indies star and member of the voting panel Daren Ganga said, "Babar Azam wins this award not only because of his significant glut of runs scored during the Pakistan v Australia tour, he was able to transition success with the bat across formats, from the Test Series into ODIs,".

He said, "Significantly, him being able to fulfil the burden of expectation as a captain and batsman for Pakistan being host to an Australian team visiting after 24 years is a monumental achievement."