Former Pakistan national cricket team player Basit Ali has raised serious questions over the position of Babar Azam and Shubman Gill in the latest ICC men’s ODI rankings for batsmen.
In the rankings, Pakistani captain Babar Azam is ranked No. 1 with 824 rating points and is followed by Indian captain Rohit Sharma who is at No. 2 position with 765 rating points. The next two batsmen on the list are also Indian as Shubman Gill (763 rating points) and Virat Kohli (746 rating points) are ranked No. 3 and No. 4 respectively.
Among the top 4 batsmen, only Rohit Sharma has been putting in consistent performances while the rest of the three stars have not been at their best in recent times.
In a video shared on his official YouTube channel, Basit Ali spoke about the ICC rankings and mischievously claimed that the governing body does not want the Pakistan captain to perform well, hence they are placing him at No. 1 so that he does not improve further. He also questioned Gill’s place in the rankings. Basit Ali said:
“When I saw the ICC rankings (ODI batsmen), Babar Azam was at the top, number two was Rohit Sharma, number three was Shubman Gill and then there was Virat Kohli at number four. I didn’t find it necessary to read out the remaining names because I couldn’t see Travis Head and Rachin Ravindra. I think the ICC wants Babar to not perform well. He would be happy with being the number one batsman in ODIs. Who gives these rankings? On what basis are Babar Azam and Shubman Gill there?”
Basit Ali has slammed the International Cricket Council, highlighting Babar Azam’s last ODI appearance and said:
“Babar’s last ODI was in last year’s World Cup. We saw players like Rachin Ravindra, Quinton de Kock, Travis Head and Virat Kohli in the World Cup. They scored three or four hundreds in the tournament. For Pakistan, Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman scored a century each. Babar Azam did not score a single hundred. His last hundred was against Nepal in the Asia Cup. What kind of rating do they give?”
It is noteworthy that Babar’s last appearance in an ODI was against the England national cricket team on November 11 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata Knight Riders. In that 2023 ODI World Cup match, the Pakistan captain amassed 38 runs in 45 balls, before being dismissed.
Basit Ali: Those in the ICC are enemies of Babar Azam
Ali surprisingly labelled ICC as an enemy of Babar Azam and said that the Pakistan captain himself would admit that he is not the world’s number one ODI batsman.
“ICC people are Babar Azam’s haters. If you ask Babar who is the current number one, he would also pick Travis Head or Virat Kohli. Even he wouldn’t say he is number one.”
In total, Babar has featured in 117 ODIs for Pakistan. In those games, he has managed to score 5729 runs at a staggering average of 56.72 and a strike rate of 88.75. The Pakistan batting superstar has also managed to score 19 tons and 32 half-centuries in the format.
