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World Cup hero Babar Azam says belief is key for Pakistan
Babar Azam says Pakistan have the belief they can win their remaining games to complete a dramatic turnaround and reach the World Cup semi-finals following victory against a strong New Zealand side on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old hit a match-winning unbeaten 101 to anchor Pakistan's reply to New Zealand's score of 237 for six at Edgbaston.
Captain Sarfaraz Ahmed hit the winning runs in the final over as they finished on 241-4 to win by six wickets.
"Belief has been the key," said Babar, who reached his 10th one-day international hundred off 124 balls with 11 fours, following the match. "We have the belief that we will win our next two games and then look ahead."
Babar, 24, said even when the team were struggling earlier in the tournament, they were confident they could turn their fortunes around.
"We were not winning matches but we talked to each other and had the belief that we could do it and now our focus is on the next game," he said.
Babar said his role had been to bat until the end of the innings.
"I was given a role to bat until the end and others bat around me and that worked well as (Mohammad) Hafeez and then Haris (Sohail) batted well to establish partnerships," said Babar.
He said his target is to become the best batsman in the world.
"I can say that this is one of my best knocks because the aim is to be the best batsman in the world," said Babar, who is already the top-rated batsman in the world in Twenty20 cricket.
According to the International Cricket Council, Babar Azam is now among the top batsmen — aged 24 or under — who scored the most runs in Cricket World Cup.
Pakistan had a disastrous start to their World Cup campaign, losing three of their first five matches with a single victory, against England, and a no-result.
But Sunday's win over South Africa at Lord's and Wednesday's victory in Birmingham have revived their hopes of pulling off a sensational comeback.
Their next game is on Saturday against Afghanistan, who have lost all seven of their matches at the tournament in England and Wales and they finish their group fixtures against Bangladesh, who are level with Pakistan on seven points.
Sri Lanka are also in the hunt, one point behind but with a game in hand, meaning 1992 winners Pakistan must still rely on other results going in their favour to qualify from the 10-team group phase.
Defending champions Australia are the only team to have qualified for the semi-finals so far while New Zealand, India and England currently occupy the other top-four slots.
Comments (38) Closed
CONGRATULATIONS. Keep it up.
Afridi is a strike bowler. He swings ball both ways and off the seam and and in the air. He takes top order wickets. He bowls a vicious yorker. every cricketer can see this. amir does none of these and takes wickets after 300 runs. You know whose better.
MasaAllah, and alhamdulilah
Bravo Babar! You are the man...
Gordon D. Walker
Canada
great victory
Remarkable innings......now pakistan will roar and rest of the world will cave in.....all other teams look so weak in front of pakistan.....
1 Good Match and u make aplayer hero ,this is the root cause of inconsistency of green shirts
No mention of Shaheen Afrid. Afridi was the one who stiffled the NZ score. If NZ had scored 300plus, could pak batting had been under easier conditions? In MHO it should have been joint MoM award.
"World Cup hero Babar Azam says belief is key for Pakistan"-Pakistan is at it again! Just out of curiosity-how exactly is Babar Azam a World Cup hero-how many World Cups has he won so far?
The Bangladesh match is a virtual quarter final. Whoever wins goes to the semifinal
@Has, Don't you think take away Amir's credits.. You wouldn't be in this slim position if not for him. He was the lone hero so far, what was Shaheen doing all these matches.?
Spectacular match-winning performance by Babar and Haris. Memories of Saleem Malik, Javed Miandad and Saeed Anwar are flashing across everyone's minds.
Concentrate on your work.
Do not be carried away by what you have achieved.
Self-praise is no praise.
Is not it a good idea to make him captain of the team, and should be focused on team fitness.
World Cup hero? Its still a million miles to go. Let's not get carried away. Shall we?
Good job but you played so slow. Match could have been over without risking so many overs
@Has,
And yet Amir has been the only consistent bowler throughout Pakistan's tournament so far, even when the rest of the team failed to turn up. I'm sure if Afridi fails against Afghanistan, he will then be considered a disaster as well.
Sometimes I think our team genuinely deserves better fans. Most of us don't have memories beyond the last match we saw...
With win against NZ we in the US felt as if we have won the World Cup. It was that feeling. We toon a day off from work to watch the game and then celebrate. Thanks Pakistan Team for making us proud! A Pardaisee Amreeki Pakistani
When you believe in yourself, anything is possible.
Records are meant to be broken. Be it kohli or Joe roots or babar aazam...change in rules has tilted game too much in the favours of batsman...we will see more and more record breakers coming in next few years...other side the art of pace bowling is going down...how many McGrath, wasim, shoaib, allan Donald we see...
@Has, Amir still has more wickets in world cup than shaheen afridi
nice article
World cup hero and legend babr. Great role in elevating pakistan to 5th position and just missing out on semifinal
Cool! Be careful of what you speak. You need to go a long way and I pray you don't fall in the trap of number game
@Has, Say what?! I guess your under influence. Comparing Amir with Shaheen?! Need to take your meds.
The aim is to be the best batsmen in the world. Okay.. But shouldn't your aim be the best contributor in Pakistan's victory?
@JH,
World Cup hero = heroic performance in the World Cup. Really that hard to understand?
@khan, Khan saheb ... if Amir has not taken a wicket in first ball, Pakistan would have lost ... right? :) ... If Sarfraz had not held the 2 catches (one of them was real beauty) off Afridi and Haris had not held the catch off Afridi than Afridi would have taken 0 wickets right.
What Afridi did before this match? ... He was just giving runs in big way (no wickets). So, if Sarfraz had not given him chancde in this match, his whole career would have got finished, right?
The aim should be to win the WC and beyond because being the best batsman means nothing if you don't win. Baber needs to become consistent like Amir and together they can beat teams with a joint effort i.e. one breaking the opposition with his bowling and the other with his batting.
Team is rallying around Amir and Baber and that is why Pak is winning. However, Pak has found another match winning batsman in Haris Sohail. If few more players can raise their level then Pak will be unbeatable.
I don't understand, how one can be "World Cup hero" without winning a trophy?
Well played...talented young so he can strive to be no one. But need to be fit and aggressive...by the by Kohli is lonely at the top so someone give him some competition so that he can bring the best out of him
Great knock, a great player in the making. But I see him becoming more of a Rahul Dravid/Kallis than a Tendulkar / Kohli.
Keep your feet on the ground and show some humbleness, we are hyper-nation, minute goes high minute later go lowest of the lowest. Are you saying the games we lose we don't believed ourselves but in this game it is other way around??
Well done Babar Azam. Keep it up. Do not fall into the bad habits, arrogance and bad behaviour which ruined the career of cousin Umar Akmal.
@HashBrown®, kindly explain what amir did in the past four years to warrant a place in the team. He has zero swing and most of his wickets have been when batsmen attack him. He does nothing to top order.
@Baloch, not just Shaheen, Junaid and Shenwari also deserved place over amir.
Indeed Azam you are a hero!
If one century, and that too with the help of a dropped catch, can make Babar Azam a world cup hero, then I wonder how are we supposed to rate Shakib-ul-hassan, K. Williamson and Aron Finch???