Pakistan’s fast bowler Shaheen Afridi dismissed Pakistan’s limited overs captain Babar Azam during the Champions Cup on Friday. Babar Azam had played a strong innings of 76 runs in 79 balls before returning to the pavilion and was moving towards a century. There has been a rift between Shaheen Afridi and Babar Azam over captaincy for some time now, Shaheen Afridi was made the captain after the defeat in the ODI World Cup last year but after a few months Babar Azam was again given the captaincy. However, this change had a wrong impact on Pakistan and the team’s performance has deteriorated a lot.
Babar Azam was out in the 35th over of the innings. He wanted to pull Shaheen Afridi’s bouncer but the ball went towards deep fine leg, where he was caught out. While playing this shot, Babar could not throw it fully and one hand slipped from the bat. Afridi celebrated taking the wicket in his trademark style. Babar Azam needed only 24 runs to score his 30th List A century but he tried to play a big shot to score runs quickly. Babar has 29 List A centuries to his name and has scored 8645 runs in 181 matches at an impressive average of 55.
Babar Azam came out to bat after Yasir Khan was dismissed during the Stallions innings. He added 39 runs with Shan Masood. After this, Babar Azam shared a 114-run partnership with Tayyab Tahir. Tahir scored 72 runs in 74 balls. Babar Azam scored 76 runs with the help of nine fours in 79 balls before getting out. This innings was very important for Babar Azam in many ways. Because for some time, runs were not coming from his bat. Babar had scored 32 *, 0, 22, 31 and 11 runs in his previous innings.