Babar Azam yet to match Virat Kohli's class but more to come from him: Mickey Arthur

Karachi: Pakistan cricket team coach Micky Arthur has praised top-order batsman Babar Azam saying that he is just getting better and better. The coach hoped that soon the cricketer would be among top five players of the world.

The comment came in the backdrop of Azam’s impressive knock of 90 runs against South Africa in the second T20I of the ongoing three-match series.

“I think he will be in the top five [batsmen] of the world very soon across all formats. I thought I was a bit quick off the gun when I said two years ago that he would be almost as good as Virat Kohli but it has taken him a while to show that class,” the Express Tribune quoted Arthur, as saying.

“But if you watched him in the nets couple of years ago, he was a young boy who has developed into a young man, he's got stronger and fitter and his game gets better and better all the time,” he added.

Arthur said that he has no doubts regarding Azam’s abilities while adding that owing to his impressive performance in South Africa, the right-hand batsman has proved that he could perform outside the sub-continent as well.

“I have never doubted Babar Azam, he keeps on getting better and better and the exciting thing for us is that we haven’t seen the best of Azam yet. He has been unbelievable on this tour. There have been question marks around Azam outside the sub-continent but I think he's put those to rest now,” he said.

“They bowled the second 10 overs better than the first 10, they took the pace off but yes, for a neutral these have been two good games but for us they haven’t been that good at all,” he added.

Pakistan had lost the second T20 match but the 90-run knock by Azam was appreciated by all.

Talking about the match, the coach said that the reason behind their loss in the match was poor performance by the bowlers.

“To be brutally honest with ourselves, I thought we batted exceptionally well but we bowled very poorly today. As a unit, apart from Imad Wasim who was obviously outstanding, the rest of the bowling unit was poor,” he said.

“That is something we will have to look at; we didn’t execute well; I think there were 64 runs scored off short deliveries although our game plan was full strength wicket to wicket so 64 runs [off short balls] was not good enough from them. The execution in the last over was particularly poor,’ he added.

Pakistan are trailing the three-match series 0-2 against South Africa. The two teams will play the final match of the series on February 6 at the SuperSport park.