Absolutely nothing is going right for Babar Azam at the moment in Test cricket. He was dismissed for a DUCK in the first innings. While he would have hoped to reverse his fortunes out there in the second dig, the right-hander could have easily walked back had Litton Das held onto the chance.
Life doesn’t often give you a second chance, but when it does, you ought to take it with both hands. Not Azam, who chopped on having put on just 22, continuing a dismal run.
In his entire Test career, the most barren patch he had faced before this was during his first Test tour to Australia in 2016-17 when he went six innings without scoring a half-century. However, this was the 14th consecutive Test innings where he failed to score a half-century at least, and he has been averaging just 21.15 since 2023.
Pakistan went through a crazy collapse in the first session of Day 5. The team lost five wickets in the session, with Azam being one of them, and are currently six down and still trailing Bangladesh’s first-innings score by nine runs.
Azam’s dismissal came at a crucial time in the game, as after the early dismissal of skipper Shan Masood, he and Abdullah Shafique were batting unhurriedly, and the game felt like moving towards a mundane draw. However, after Nahid Rana got Azam chopped on, the floodgates opened for Bangladesh.
Saud Shakeel was stumped on a delivery by Shakib Al Hasan that drifted away from the left-hander from over the wicket. Then, after a small altercation where an angry Shakib threw the ball back at the keeper after the batter, Mohammad Rizwan wasn’t ready to face the ball in time, Shafique lost his composure as well.
The opener danced down the track to the left-arm spinner and played a wild heave, trying to lift the ball over mid-off. However, he skied it and was caught. Mehidy Hasan Miraz then dismissed Agha Salman for a duck, and now, Pakistan’s tail is exposed to the Bangladeshis, who sense a historic victory at Rawalpindi.
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