Maaz

On Babar Azam average 50plus in 2026. I shared a stat today showing that Babar Azam has the highest batting average in Test cricket in 2026 among players who have played at least 10 innings. It attracted criticism, with some questioning why the qualification was set at 10 inns when other players with fewer inns had higher averages. I think people need to understand that cricket statistics always come with certain qualifications. Whether you are discussing career averages or performances over a particular period, you need a reasonable benchmark. Sometimes it is 1000 runs, 500 runs, 10 inns or 50 inns, depending on the context. We are looking at a calendar year that is almost 11 months old. A minimum of 10 innings is a perfectly reasonable qualification. 20 inns would make the list too small, while eight, six or seven would be equally arbitrary choices. There are 26 players who have batted in at least 10 innings this year and Babar is at the top of that list. This doesn’t mean he is the best batter in the world in 2026 or that everyone else is inferior. It simply provides some perspective on his performances. I feel a section of Pakistan’s cricket fans has become so negative, influenced by certain social media accounts and clown-like-Youtubers, that they struggle to acknowledge anything positive about our players. Babar hasn’t scored a Test century in four years, and his 41 consecutive innings without a hundred is a legitimate concern. But he is still averaging around 50 in Test cricket this year. If a batter is scoring 5 or 6 half-centuries in a year and averaging 50, can we really say he is completely out of form? Not converting starts into hundreds is one problem; not scoring runs is another. More importantly, Pakistan’s batting problems are collective. Our batters have scored only four Test centuries in the last two years. Not a single middle-order batter at positions 4 to 7 has scored a Test hundred during this period. Why single out Babar for a problem that involves the entire batting unit? Winning Test matches requires taking 20 wickets. Pakistan’s bowling attack has struggled in recent years, while our collective batting average has also been among the worst. If the team’s overall average is around 25 and one batter is averaging 50, calling that batter useless or selfish makes little sense. We witnessed similar negativity after Shadab Khan’s brilliant ODI century. Instead of appreciating what I consider was one of Pakistan’s finest ODI innings, people immediately started finding reasons to dismiss it. Criticism is necessary and players must be held accountable. But it should be fair and balanced. We don’t need to turn every positive performance into another opportunity for negativity.