Why Pakistan is so obsessed with Babar Azam phenomenon

In Pakistani cricket of the past, either there was Lahore's cosmopolitan veneer or the complexities of the local Karachi ilk. It couldn't have been anything in between, and it somehow created an adverse effect in the way the country’s cricket was viewed. But when Babar Azam drove Trent Boult for an effortless four in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, there was no disagreement on how good that was. Both Lahore and Karachi rose up to applaud and it was, in fact, 100% original. It was the salute of the country, which had been waiting for its next genius batting talent that could rival its neighbour.

But there is a counter-argument to it too. Ever since Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, and Steve Smith have taken over the leadership of their respective countries, their game has been positively enriched. Joe Root can’t claim the same for him but it is okay because he has only degraded from the high standard he had achieved for himself under Cook. Babar’s future as a successful captain will as much depend on his stoicism as the peripheral things that normally control Pakistan cricket but he has shown the early glimpse as skipper of Karachi Kings in the latest edition of the PSL. So there is at least hope and that hope is the basement of why Pakistan feels they have a jewel that will save them.

For a country that has long been locked with the idea of mercuriality - a tendency of unpredictability - it is a welcome narrative. You never write off Pakistan in your senses and that perhaps has given the sport some of its best stories. Be it the 1992 World Cup or ludicrously unbelievable 2017 Champions Trophy. But do you know one thing? Pakistanis never really liked it. They don’t like coming back from the dead and surprise everybody. Rather, they want to show that they can be a challenger at every juncture like Australia, they too want to reach the knockouts every time like India, they don’t like being labelled as underdogs like New Zealand and they want to be favourites as South Africa have always been. 

They now believe Babar will make them the force they deserve to be. They also see Babar as the disruptions to the channel that had given them promise but faltered away. The horrors of Sohaib Maqsood, Ahmed Shahzad, Umar Akmal, and Sharjeel Khan still haunt them but Babar will have none of it. He will rise above it and create a team in his own ideology the way Stephen Fleming did for New Zealand, MS Dhoni for India, and more recently, Eoin Morgan for England. It is the endgame that we are talking about and can you really blame Pakistani fans for feeling that way?