Pakistan captain Babar Azam has been announced as the winner of the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Men's Cricketer of the year 2022. This was the second major award for the Men in Green skipper as he was also announced as the ICC Men's ODI Cricketer of the year for the second successive time.
Babar dominated the 2022 calendar year to such an extent that he was the only batter to score over 2000 across formats. He reached the milestone with ease eventually finishing with 2598 international runs at an average of 54.12, which is enough to show how consistent he was.
The right-handed batter added eight centuries and 17 fifties in 2022, undoubtedly making it one of the best years of his career. It was in ODIs that he was at his sublime best, scoring 679 runs in 9 matches, crossing the 50-run mark in eight of those innings, scoring three hundreds and five half-centuries, implying a failure in just a solitary innings.
Babar led Pakistan to final of T20 World Cup 2022
In addition, he also led Pakistan to wins in all the three ODI series that they played last year. In the shortest format of the game too, Babar led his country to the final of the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia eventually falling short against England in the summit clash.
A performance that will be remembered for a long time to come was his 196 against Australia in the fourth innings of the match with his side in a bit of a trouble. However, the Lahore born cricketer stayed at the wicket for 10 hours and took his team who were staring at a defeat to giving them an outside chance of a win.
He might have fell short of his double hundred but it remains his highest Test score and the highest score that a Test captain has scored in the final innings of a Test.