Pakistani batsman Babar Azam has ended Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli’s three-year reign as the world’s number one ODI batsman. Azam has become only the fourth Pakistani player to achieve this extraordinary feat.
According to the ICC website, the 26-year-old Pakistani batsman now has 865 points as opposed to Kohli’s 857 points. Azam’s Man Of The Match effort of an 82-ball 94 in the last game of the series against South Africa in Centurion helped him gain 13 rating points.
Another Indian Rohit Sharma is placed at third in the ranking with 825 points. The list of the top 10 ODI batsmen also has one more Pakistani batsman, Fakhar Zaman, who’s occupied the seventh position with 778 points.
Azam, who now leads Kohli by eight points, was a star of the ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cups in 2010 and 2012. The elegant Pakistani batsman has been playing ODIs since 2015. When Pakistan’s series against South Africa began, Azam had 837 rating points but he moved up to 858 (ahead of Kohli) after his score of 103 in the first match. He dropped to 852 by the time of the last weekly rankings update with a score of 32 in the second ODI.
According to a statement by the ICC, by ending Kohli’s 1,258 day-supremacy, Azam has emulated compatriots Zaheer Abbas (1983-84), Javed Miandad (1988-89), and Mohammad Yousuf (2003) as the number one ODI batsman. In Tests, Babar has attained a best of fifth position and is currently ranked sixth while in T20Is he is third but has been number one in the past.
Left-handed opener Fakhar Zaman is another Pakistan batsman to move up the ODI batting charts, gaining five slots to reach a career-best seventh position after his knock of 101 while left-arm fast bowler Shaheen Afridi (up four places to a career-best 11th place) and left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz (up 29 places to 96th) have progressed thanks to their three-wicket hauls in the match.