Pakistan’s young sensation Babar Azam is considered as one of the most gifted players of modern-day cricket. The right-handed batsman is often compared to Indian captain Virat Kohli just because he has been a consistent and exceptional performer.
Babar has played remarkable cricket for the past couple of years in the white-ball format, and therefore he averages above 50 in both ODIs and T20Is.
During Pakistan’s tour of South Africa in 2018-19, Babar exhibited some outstanding knocks against the likes of Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada. In the three-match T20I series, he clubbed 151 runs with an average of 50.33 and remained the top scorer.
Now Steyn has hailed Babar for the fantastic run in the Africa tour and revealed that he underestimated the ability of the young Pakistani batsman.
“I love the fact that Babar came out and played with that aggressive mindset. I know I bowled like five half-volleys in a row to give him that opportunity to get onto that role. I think I probably underestimated his ability,” said Steyn while speaking to Cricket Pakistan.
“He had a couple of great drives. I thought I would send it wider, but he was able to get on top of that as well,” Steyn added.
Steyn expressed that it was good to see the competition with Babar and hoped to see the latter battle it out against him again.
“He has now gone on to make a billion runs since then. He used that as the stepping stone because he had taken on a bowler who in his eyes was one of the best. That is awesome. It is nice that there is a cat and mouse thing with everyone. When we face off next time, it is going to be back to zero. The past won’t matter. It’s really nice that he has gone on to be as good as he is,” the 36-year-old added further.
