Babar Azam and Litton Das.
Babar Azam and Litton Das. Image Credit: X

The former Test captain of the Pakistan side, Babar Azam, has been going through tough times with the bat in hand across formats, as he couldn’t do much in the first of the two-match red-ball series against Bangladesh at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. He could manage to gather only a second-ball duck in the first innings, followed by 22 runs in the second.

The anticipation was to see Babar Azam getting back into his normal groove of scoring truck-loaded runs in the second game. He began well and looked to be in a solid state to collect the runs. A couple of boundaries and most of their single and doubles took him to 31 before he was trapped before the stumps against Shakib Al Hasan.

Under his captaincy, Pakistan didn’t do well in India during last year’s ODI World Cup where they lost one of the games against Afghanistan in Chennai, while the situation went downhill when they lost their T20 World Cup 2024 game against the United States of America, and was forced to make a group stage exit from the tournament.

Watch: Babar Azam displays funny act while batting vs Bangladesh

During the second Test, Babar Azam was batting well and looked to be back to his classical timing. He was on the score of 26 when Shakib was bowling to him. The Bangladesh left-arm spinner was about to ball the ball, while the batter almost came into his stance of sweeping the delivery.

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Smartly, Shakib decided to deny the ball while the Karachi-born fell into the crease, looking straight into the sky as if he wasn’t premediating the shot at all. The commentators busted to laughter, as were the wicket-keeper Litton Das and the first slip fielder.

During the period, he was batting well, but a few overs later, Babar Azam was dismissed, and he seemed to get the Bangladesh side back in energy. The veteran is now yet to score a half-century in his last 15 innings in the longest format of the game, as he has been facing a lot of criticism with his mindset and technique. The fans have raised questions over his positions.

The Green Brigade kept on losing wickets at regular intervals before Agha Salman displayed some quality in the batting and smashed a 54-run knock in 95 balls, shouldering on three boundaries and a couple of sixes in the game, to take the team to 274 in their first innings.

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It will be vital for the home side to see the return of Babar Azam among the scores, especially in the red-ball format. The last defeat dropped them down so much in the points table of the World Test Championship (WTC), and now to have an outside chance for the final, they need to win all the remaining games.

For that to happen, the 30-year-old needs to score big centuries. At the end of the game, the hosts are due to host England in a three-match Test series in late autumn before making their trip to South Africa towards the end of the year. Before all of these, Babar Azam will have another chance to come up with a better and quality batting show in the second innings of the current Bangladesh Test.