‘Ab toh sharam karle Babar’ – Fans react as former South Africa cricketer takes sly dig at Babar Azam’s defensive approach against New Zealand

The Pakistan cricket team are asked to chase a monumental target of 402 runs in the 35th match of the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday, November 4. Opener Fakhar Zaman has already provided a brilliant start to the team.

Meanwhile, former legendary South African cricketer Herschelle Gibbs took to his social media handle to take a sly dig at Pakistan skipper Babar Azam. Chasing the monumental target, Babar was expected to bat with an aggressive approach but he was spotted batting very casually with a defensive approach after which Gibbs tweeted, “Can someone tell Babar they chasing 400…”

The Men in Green started the chase with an early setback by losing opener Abdullah Shafique in the 2nd over. However, Fakhar, who was playing only 3rd match of this tournament showed brilliant intent and took on the Kiwi bowler by smashing a magnificent century which came off just 63 deliveries. However, he didn’t get much support from the other end as Babar decided to keep the one end safe.

Brilliant Century by Rachin Ravindra

The match got interrupted due to rain and when it resumed, the overs were reduced to 41 and the target also got short. The Men in Green now needed 342 runs to win and that too with 9 wickets in hand. Fakhar will need good and equal support from the skipper in order to chase the target.

Earlier, the Blackcaps displayed an exceptional batting performance courtesy of a brilliant partnership between Rachin Ravindra and Kane Williamson who stitched a 180-run stand for the 2nd wicket. Ravindra smashed his 3rd century of the tournament while Williamson, who was playing just his 2nd match of the tournament, missed his century by 5 runs. The middle-order batters took brilliant advantage of the foundation set by both Ravindra and Williamson and helped the team achieve a monumental total of 401 runs.

Here’s how fans reacted:

https://twitter.com/mdrj007/status/1720765526618849423

https://twitter.com/ka_mylll/status/1720762450877059079