Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam has added another accolade to his name after being named the winner of the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year.
The 28-year-old enjoyed another prolific season with the bat scoring 2598 runs in 44 matches at an average of 54.12 with eight centuries and 17 half-centuries across the three formats.
Babar was the only batter to breach the 2000 run mark in 2022 with his haul of eight tons and 17 fifties during the calendar year being the best of his career to date.
He shone the brightest in the fifty-over game with 679 runs in nine matches.
In a remarkable display of consistency, he registered scores of 50 or more in eight of his innings and continues to hold on to his top spot in the ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings. He was named the ICC Men’s ODI Player of the Year for a second consecutive year for his efforts.
Babar was also recently named the captain of the ICC Men’s ODI Team of the Year after winning all three 50-over series in 2022.
Pakistan also reached the 2022 T20 World Cup final under his guidance, narrowly losing out to England.
Arguably, his best innings came against Australia in the first test match between the two sides.
With Pakistan staring at defeat he scored a 425-ball 196 to steer Pakistan to safety while registering the highest score by a Test captain in the fourth innings of a Test.
He went on to score 1184 runs from just nine matches in the longest format of the game.
Babar winning the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year keeps the award in the Pakistani dressing room as Shaheen Afridi was last year’s recipient.
