Young Babar Azam's strike rate was detrimental to Pakistan's cause: Harsha Bhogle

Indian cricket analyst and commentator Harsha Bhogle has admitted that he wasn't sure if Pakistan's limited-overs skipper Babar Azam’s game was suited for T20 cricket due to his scoring rate in the first phase of his career which lagged behind his stellar scoring average.

Bhogle, while speaking on Red Inker with Jarrod Kimber, said that Azam's strike rate of 115 in his starting few years with the Pakistan team was not impressive despite his average being in excess of 50.

"For the major part of his first two or three years, Azam had a batting average of 50 or 55 but a strike rate of 120. If you are playing with a strike rate of 110 or 115 in T20 cricket, the longer you bat, the more you are ensuring your team’s defeat," he said. 

"Suddenly the batting average is running contrary to what batting average does in any other form of cricket."

However, Azam has upped his scoring rate significantly over the past 12 months, not only souring to the top of ICC ranking for T20I batsmen but now scoring 128 runs for every 100 balls faced.

In a similar fashion, all-rounder Shahid Afridi had recently echoed Bhogle's sentiments and said that he had his doubts regarding Azam making it as a 20-over batsman initially.

"I thought Babar Azam would survive in Tests and ODIs but not in T20Is," Afridi had said. 

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