{"id":4083,"date":"2022-03-19T22:28:13","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T17:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=4083"},"modified":"2022-03-19T22:28:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T17:28:15","slug":"bible-of-cricket-ranks-babar-azams-196-among-the-best-4th-innings-efforts-of-this-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/sports\/bible-of-cricket-ranks-babar-azams-196-among-the-best-4th-innings-efforts-of-this-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Bible of Cricket Ranks Babar Azam\u2019s 196 Among the Best 4th Innings Efforts of This Century"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Azam&#8217;s 10-hour stay on the pitch ranked third among the 10 best match-saving fourth-innings efforts of the 21st century, released on Thursday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Islamabad, March 19 (AsiaFreePress):\u00a0<\/strong>Pakistan skipper Babar Azam&#8217;s match-saving and record-breaking 196 against Australia in the final innings of the second Test in Karachi has been lauded as among the best fourth innings batting displays this century by\u00a0<em>Wisden<\/em>.\u00a0<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Azam&#8217;s 10-hour stay on the pitch ranked third among the 10 best match-saving fourth-innings efforts of the 21st century, released on Thursday. The report said the Pakistan captain lived up to his reputation when his team needed him the most and &#8220;piled misery&#8221; on the Australian team to raise hopes of Pakistan&#8217;s win.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The hosts had been bowled out for 148 in the first innings and were under immense pressure in the second innings after being set a target of 506. All of this didn\u2019t seem to matter to Babar, who played an all-time great knock,&#8221; the report added.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Azam had come in to bat when the team was reeling at 21 for 2. He had formed an incredible 228-run partnership for the third wicket with Abdullah Shafique but did not flinch even when the young\u2019un departed a few short of his century.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The skipper was closing in on his first-ever double century when he fell prey to Nathan Lyon. In all, he had scored 196 off 425 balls, hit 21 boundaries and a solitary six.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was his best and most memorable knock in Pakistan colours \u2014 certainly in Tests and maybe even in all formats. Azam had broken the following three records with his performance:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Highest score by a Pakistani batter in fourth innings&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Highest score by a captain in the fourth innings.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Most balls consumed by a Pakistan batter in the fourth innings&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was a team effort, as others chipped in with useful contributions too,&#8221; the Pakistan captain had said after the match. \u201cWe tried to be positive and play our shots. The team needed this knock, so I tried to bat for as long as I could.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His score was so impressive that even foreign media figures \u2014 including those from neighbouring India \u2014 couldn&#8217;t help but wax lyrical about him.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following are the top 10 fourth-innings batting performances listed by&nbsp;<em>Wisden<\/em>:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\"><li>Australia&#8217;s Ricky Ponting \u2013 156 (275) vs England at Manchester, 2005\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>South Africa&#8217;s Faf du Plessis \u2013 110* (376) vs Australia at Adelaide, 2012\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>Pakistan&#8217;s Babar Azam \u2013 196 (425) vs Australia at Karachi, 2022\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>India&#8217;s Rishabh Pant \u2013 97 (118) vs Australia at Sydney, 2021\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>South Africa&#8217;s Hashim Amla \u2013 25 (159) vs Sri Lanka at Colombo, 2014\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>England&#8217;s Matt Prior \u2013 110 (182*) vs New Zealand at Auckland, 2013\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>Australia&#8217;s Usman Khawaja \u2013 141 (302) vs Pakistan at Dubai, 2018\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>England&#8217;s Ian Bell \u2013 78 (213) vs South Africa at Cape Town, 2010\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>South Africa&#8217;s Faf du Plessis \u2013 134 (309) vs India at Johannesburg, 2013\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><li>West Indies&#8217; Dwayne Smith \u2013 105* (105) vs South Africa at Cape Town, 2005\u00a0\u00a0<\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Azam&#8217;s 10-hour stay on the pitch ranked third among the 10 best match-saving fourth-innings efforts of the 21st century, released on Thursday.\u00a0\u00a0 Islamabad, March 19 (AsiaFreePress):\u00a0Pakistan skipper Babar Azam&#8217;s match-saving and record-breaking 196 against Australia in the final innings of the second Test in Karachi has been lauded as among the best fourth innings batting [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,82,53],"tags":[2434,1334,93,2435,65,2431,94,2432,2433],"class_list":["post-4083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-paksitan","category-sports","tag-4th-best-innings-of-century","tag-babar-azam-2","tag-cricket","tag-match-saver","tag-pakistan","tag-pakvsaus","tag-pcb","tag-test-cricket","tag-wisden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}