Test matches hardly draw crowds in Pakistan anymore and it is rare for the locals to know which teams or players are competing in their cities during first-class competitions. But Abbottabad was abuzz on the opening day of the third round of the ongoing President’s Trophy as locals flocked to the stadium in large numbers to witness the much-anticipated return of a certain batter.
That Babar was coming back to domestic first-class cricket after a gap of seven years did not matter to them. They were rather there to cherish a rare opportunity to watch their hero bat in the flesh. The stadium which remains deserted for most part of the year doesn’t really have many facilities to cater to the spectators. So those who had turned up for Babar eagerly lined up around the iron-railing just to get a glimpse.
Iftikhar’s call at the toss dampened the mood around the stadium, and it would not be until the third day of the match that the fans finally got to see Babar bat.
Babar – as is the norm around Pakistan or anywhere around the world he plays – was greeted by the chants of “Babar-Babar” when he strolled to the middle with OGDCL two down for 21 in reply to KRL’s 398. It has hardly mattered to his fans what situation the team is in when Babar makes his way to the middle.
But the excitement and dopamine hit that Babar’s presence at the crease had brought to his fans did not last for long, as a short ball from Arshad Iqbal curtailed his stay to only 20 balls. The fans’ excitement might have soon turned into a worry as it stamped that his travails against the short ball were real.
Babar had a woeful tour of England, as Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue, two of the world’s quickest fast bowlers, exposed his struggles against short balls in the last two Tests. He found himself in a tangle against Archer’s wicked short ball at Lord’s and ended up gloving Tongue to the keeper down the leg against one which angled into his body at Edgbaston.
Had Babar not been caught at short midwicket off a mistimed pull against Iqbal at Abbottabad, his fans and those at the National Cricket Academy could have moved on from those two dismissals. Pakistan batters, after all, have been bothered by short balls in SENA countries for far too long. But that he succumbed to the short ball against a domestic bowler who is nowhere as lethal as Archer or Tongue, underscored that this had now become a technical flaw in his batting.
The videos of Babar’s ugly hack towards midwicket from day three were still making rounds on social media, when he was rapped on pads by a fairly straightish full-length delivery from Faheem Ashraf the next day as OGDCL were forced to follow on by KRL. He scored four off 15 even as the less experienced batters around him made crucial contributions to save the match.
One thing was clear, though. Babar’s batting struggles extended beyond his susceptibility to short balls.
This ongoing edition of the President’s Trophy has attracted far more attention than any first-class competition in Pakistan in recent memory as almost all Test and international players are featuring in it. But the news of Babar joining the OGDCL brought in a fresh wave of interest.
It was after the President’s Trophy had commenced that Babar reached out to the PCB to have himself placed in one of the eight teams playing the tournament. The PCB’s domestic department had a word with the OGDCL who were happy to have him onboard as a guest player. A PCB official told Cricinfo at the time that Babar desired to regain his form by playing first-class cricket. It was the right thing to do with Pakistan’s home international season around the corner. But each of his four innings in the competition to date have left him under more scrutiny than before.
With the Kookaburra ball back in first-class cricket after a gap of two seasons, batters have plundered runs in this President’s Trophy. Twenty-two of them have scored centuries in the first four rounds of which two – Salman Ali Agha and Abdullah Fazal – have gone on to score triple-centuries.
Mohammad Taha of Pakistan TV (PTV) and Hasan Raza of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have scored double-hundreds, and even Kingsmen Academy’s 19-year-old captain Tayyab Arif, who is playing his maiden first-class season, has struck a century.
All this goes on to underscore the extraordinary decline in Babar’s form. He has only 58 runs in four innings and is 70th on the list of the batters with most runs in this competition. Even Shadab Khan, who has played only one match, and fast bowler Khurram Shahzad have scored more than Babar. It is definitely not the returns of someone who can be considered the best among the country’s current lot.
Three days after he was trapped in front by Ashraf at Abbottabad, SBP fast bowlers welcomed Babar with a short-ball barrage at the Diamond Cricket Ground in Islamabad.
Thirty-nine balls in, Afaq Ahmed, a right-arm fast bowler with only 17 first-class matches under his belt, had him plumb in front. Babar was visibly annoyed upon being adjudged LBW. Whether he was challenging the decision or just venting out his frustration at being dismissed in the similar fashion twice in a row when he pointed towards the umpire with his bat before walking off is anyone’s guess.
Like Abbottabad Cricket Stadium, the Diamond Cricket Ground was packed with spectators around the boundary and he had to be escorted by the OGDCL support staff and a few security guards at the venue after he was mobbed by selfie-seeking fans on his way back to the pavilion.
The bizarre episode was the harbinger of what was to come throughout the match. But as it is the case in this part of the world, the authorities often don’t pay attention until something goes wrong, which did the next day when Babar threw away a fan’s phone on the ground in sheer frustration after he had invaded the pitch to get a selfie clicked while Babar fielded in the slips.
It exposed how domestic cricket often escapes attention in Pakistan. The ground wasn’t set up to prevent the kind of incidents which occurred, and only after video of the incident went viral on social media, were measures put into place to make Diamond Cricket Ground off limits for fans.
“But as it is the case in this part of the world, the authorities often don’t pay attention until something goes wrong, which did the next day when Babar threw away a fan’s phone on the ground in sheer frustration after he had invaded the pitch to get a selfie clicked”
There was calm and order around the ground on day three and Babar seemed to be finding his rhythm as he raced to 21, after smashing four boundaries, until he was caught by surprise by a rather innocuous length ball outside his off stump. Reacting late to it, Babar could not get his bat out of the line of the ball in time and ended up handing a simple catch to the second slip. Bizarre things can happen to a batter when he is out of form.
OGDCL’s recent match against SBP may well be his last match of the President’s Trophy as he is expected to be picked for next week’s T20I series against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi. It could also mean that Babar might not play any further first-class matches this season as Pakistan host an ODI tri-series involving Sri Lanka and England later in the month and the two-Test series against Sri Lanka falls in the middle of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, which is scheduled to be held from November 1.
Babar last scored a century in Test cricket in December 2022 and has since averaged 30.43 in the format which is 12.55 runs lower than his career average. A first-class stint was considered the panacea which would solve his batting woes. But this President’s Trophy has raised more questions around his batting than there were when he was signed as a guest player by OGDCL two weeks ago.
Ahsan Iftikhar Nagi is a cricket journalist based in Lahore