Former New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris heaped praise on Babar Azam in the build-up to the 2022 Asia Cup, calling the star Pakistani batter the “number one man going around”.
Babar, who has charted a meteoric rise in international cricket since making his debut in the summer of 2015, is among the top batters of the modern era and Styris feels it won’t be an easy task for opposition teams to form a strategy against him, either to dismiss him or keep him off strike.
“I think what you would say is if India could win, any team could say I’ll give you 16 Babar Azams and then you’re out. They would take it every day of the week. He is that good. He is the number one man going around,” the Brisbane-born former New Zealand cricketer was quoted as saying on SPORTS18’s daily sports news show SPORTS OVER THE TOP.
“I think you’ve almost got to be brave. Be a little bit risky and try that magic delivery that you might be a little afraid to bowl, because if you get it wrong, it can go out of the park because it’s going to take a special delivery to get somebody like him out in the form that he’s in,” added Styris.
Styris weighed in on premier fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi missing out on the Asia Cup as well as the home T20I series against England due to a knee injury, saying his absence from the tournament will certainly lead to a sigh of relief from opposition batters.
“Every top order should be high-fiving themselves because he has every possible attribute that you could want in a fast bowler. He has height, he has the pace, he gets bounce, he has that ability to swing the ball, and he has the variation of being a left armer as well.
“So, I’m with you. I think that every top order in this competition, not just the Indian top order who are susceptible to the ball coming back, I think that they will be delighted that he isn’t there and it gives them a greater chance of winning the tournament,” added Styris.
Also Read: Afridi missing Asia Cup 2022 a big relief for Indian top order, says Waqar
The Asia Cup, which was shifted to the UAE from Sri Lanka, will begin on 27 August with Sri Lanka taking on Afghanistan in the opening clash. That will be followed by the highly-anticipated showdown between arch-rivals India and Pakistan on the 28th in Dubai.
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