Babar Azam on the left and Virat Kohli on the right. (FILE photo)
Babar Azam has been going through a poor run of form since the start of the year. And recently after the first Test between Pakistan and England, the talisman was taken out of the side for the remainder of the series.
It is a rough patch that the 30-year-old has not been used to in his career before hence former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting would take a leaf out of Virat Kohli’s book and suggest the same advice to Babar on what had worked for Kohli when he was going through barren form.
“I think Virat was on record saying this – that little bit of a break that he had, he took himself away from the game for a while to freshen up and sort out some things that he needed to sort out,” recalled Ponting during ICC review. “You know, when you look at (Babar’s) numbers, it’s been a bit like the stuff that we were talking about with Virat [Kohli] earlier on,” Ponting added.
Kohli after taking a break from international cricket returned to the side and though India did not make the later stage of the Asia Cup in 2022 Kohli registered his first international T20 ton. He has been short of runs prior to the innings and there were 1020 days between Kohli’s ton against Afghanistan and his red-ball ton against Sri Lanka in November 2019.
“It [the thoughts running through his head] was an accumulation of a lot of things. As I said, when I came back into the team [after a break], the team’s been really open and welcoming and helpful, giving me space to work on my game. I know there was a lot of stuff going on on the outside but they really kept my perspective right,” Kohli said at the time.
Babar has been averaging 20.3 in Test cricket since 2023. “They’ve got to find a way to get Babar back into form and back into their [Test] team,” Ponting said.
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