Cricket

'A Dragon spitting Fire!' - Fans react as Babar Azam scores amazing century in first Asia Cup 2023 match against Nepal

Babar Azam is now only a century away to join Saeed Anwar to jointly become the batter with most ODI centuries for Pakistan in the history.

author-image
Daniel S
New Update
Babar Azam

Pakistan skipper and World No. 1 batter, Babar Azam has completed his ODI career’s 19th century in the ongoing first Asia Cup 2023 match against Nepal. He rescued the team after they lost their openers early on the team’s score of 29 runs in the 7th over. Babar also became the first batter in the Asia Cup 2023 to score a century in the tournament.

At the moment, Babar is playing on the score of 102 runs off 111 balls, with 10 boundaries as Pakistan scored 228 runs for the loss of 4 wickets in 42 overs. Star middle order batter Iftikhar Ahmed is also there in the middle on the individual score of 51 runs.

The duo has also stitched a partnership of 104 runs for the fifth wicket for Pakistan. Karan KC and Sandeep Lamichhane have scalped 1 wicket each for Nepal, including two runouts by skipper Rohit Paudel and Dipender Singh Airee.

Notably, the new entrants of the current edition of the Asia Cup, Nepal have made it to the tournament for the first time since 1984. They qualified for the main edition of the tournament after winning the title in the Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers.

Coming back to Babar Azam, he has scored his ODI career’s 19th century just in the 102nd innings. He has also become the second Pakistan batter to achieve the most centuries in ODIs; now, he is only behind the former legendary opener Saeed Anwar, who scored 20 centuries in his illustrious career of 244 ODI innings in 247 matches. Anwar had 43 half-centuries, 15 more than Babar Azam’s 28 ODI half-centuries.

Speaking of the 28-year-old’s ODI career so far, he has scored 5312 runs in 102 innings of 104 ODIs, he played so far for Pakistan. Babar has scored these runs with an impressive average of 59.68. He could play a vital role in Pakistan’s quest to win their third Asia Cup title after they missed the final of the Asia Cup 2022 against Sri Lanka.

Here’s how fans reacted to Babar Azam’s century against Nepal:

Cricket News Babar Azam Asia Cup 2023 Pakistan vs Nepal