‘Yeh izzat hai tumhare number one batsman ki’ – Fans react as Simon Doull says Babar Azam boosted his rankings against weaker teams

Former New Zealand pacer and commentator, Simon Doull has called out Pakistan skipper Babar Azam’s number-one ODI rankings. The latter has been the number-one batter for a considerable time. However, looking further into the stats, a lot of matches he played against lower-ranked sides than the Green Brigade. Meanwhile, during the ODI World Cup 2023 between Pakistan and Australia, Doull opined that he ranks Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards above Azam.

Meanwhile, talking about the Pakistan-Australia game, the 1992 winners won the toss and chose to bat first. However, for the first 33.5 overs, the decision proved extremely wrong for the Asian side. Apparently, after Usama Mir dropped David Warner on 10, the latter alongside Mitchell Marsh put together 259 runs for the first wicket.

After this partnership was broken, the Pakistan bowlers made a comeback with Shaheen Afridi and Haris Rauf taking five and three wickets respectively. In the end, the five-time winners were rather restricted to 367/9. In reply, Pakistan had a great start with 134 runs for the first wicket by Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq. After this, the team was reduced to 175/3 including the wicket of Azam.

Even though the likes of Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan put together 57 runs, the team was bowled out for 305 runs. After the fall of the former, the rest of the batters failed to win the game for their side. They lost the game by 62 runs.

Rather than putting the team first, Babar Azam put his numbers above: Simon Doull

During the PSL 2023 early this year, Doull criticized the way Azam tried to score his maiden PSL hundred.

“Rather than putting the team first… the last little while, that’s all that been happening. Rather than looking for boundaries, still so much firepower to come. Hundreds are brilliant, stats are great, but it has to be team first,” Doull said during his commentary stint.

This statement attracted a lot of abuse towards him and his late mother.

This is how Twitter reacted