A video from the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy showing Babar Azam telling a fellow fielder in the slip cordon how to focus and concentrate on catching at that position, has gone viral on social media because what happened on the very next ball.
The batter edged the delivery and the catch went straight to Babar but he dropped it.
Babar later fell for 28 off 41 balls while playing for Lahore Whites against FATA at the Diamond Cricket Ground in Islamabad.
He has struggled for form in recent months. In the ODI tri-series against England and Sri Lanka, he made 118 runs in five matches at an average of 23.60 and a strike rate of 74.21, without a half-century. His scores were 45, 34, 10, 29 and a duck in the final against Sri Lanka.
Babar has scored one ODI century since his 151 against Nepal in September 2023. That hundred came against Sri Lanka in November 2025 and was his 20th in the format, after a wait of more than two years. He then scored a half-century against Australia in Rawalpindi in May 2026 and has not passed 50 in ODIs since.
His last Test century was 161 against New Zealand in Karachi in December 2022. In this year’s Test series against England, he made 97 runs in four innings, with scores of 76, 8, 6 and 7.
He then turned to domestic cricket to find form and scored 58 runs in four first-class innings.
