India vs Pakistan match: Babar Azam ‘guaranteed’ to fail against Rohit Sharma & Co, has poor record

India vs Pakistan match: In the eight matches he has played against IND, Babar Azam averages only 31.

The India-Pakistan clash is around the corner, and somehow all the talk is around Virat Kohli only. It seems that the Indian fans have completely forgotten about the Pakistani side, and Babar Azam. But it’s not their fault too, since the ex-skipper has a poor record against our bowlers, and his numbers scream that.

In all India vs Pakistan matches, eight so far, Babar Azam has only scored 218 runs, with a highest of 50 and at an average of 31.14. His strike-rate in these matches is a below-par 75, where he has just managed to hit one six. If we dig deep into these performances, except for one run out, and one DNB, Babar was dismissed twice by Kuldeep Yadav, once by Kedar Jadhav, once by Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah.

One of the biggest problems for him has been his dots balls played in these innings. What explains this is — his highest strike-rate in these innings has been only 88, during the India-Pakistan battle in the Champions Trophy final in 2017. Otherwise, he has usually struggled – in the first CT 2017 match, he had an SR of 66, then in Asia Cup 2018, it went to 75 and 36. In 2019 World Cup it was 84, and in Asia Cup 2023, it was only 41.

Even though the Indian team does not have the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj in this India vs Pakistan match, but there certainly is Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, and Axar Patel, who are known for their tight bowling. They have economy rates of 4.86, 4.99 and 4.51, respectively, that would trouble Babar.

Then there is Mohammed Shami who is back in form too, and had claimed a fifer against Bangladesh in the first match. Against Pakistan he is a different beast, and has an economy of only 3.82. So this is danger signs for Babar as well as Pakistan.