"I think I said then that for this guy, the sky is the limit in test Cricket - Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting, former Australian captain feels that it’s just a matter of time before Pakistan’s Babar Azam became the number one ranked batsman in Test cricket. Currently, Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne is on the number one spot on the ICC Test Rankings.

Later this year in March Australia will tour Pakistan for the first time after 24 years. The tour has 3 tests, 3 ODI and a T20I. Babar Azam is already the number one batter in both the white-ball formats. And Ricky feels that he has the qualities that are required to be the best in the longest format of the game.

Ricky Ponting highly praises Babar Azam, even thinks he could be soon no-1 in Test

Ricky Ponting on ICC’s review show said, “He (Babar Azam) has been great in T20I cricket in the past as well, hasn’t he? His white-ball cricket has been nothing short of breathtakingly good for the last four-five years. He’s the same as Shaheen. I don’t get to see a lot of these guys outside of when they tour Australia. But when I saw Babar in the second innings in Brisbane in the first Test against Australia, some of the shots that I saw him play on a fast bouncy Brisbane pitch – both on the front and back foot – against Hazlewood, Starc, and Cummins – it was like, I have heard a lot about him and I have seen a fair bit of his while-ball stuff, but this guy is the real deal”.

It’s only a matter of time I felt before he was going to be either the No.1-ranked Test batter in the world or certainly challenging for it. He’s probably challenging for that position right now and probably if he had played a few more Test matches through the last couple of years he’d be knocking the door down for that,” he added.

Ricky Ponting further said, “He’s a beautiful player, simple as that. The thing I always look for with these younger type of batters is if they can play well off the back foot in Australia. And particularly through the off-side with a straight bat – which is probably an area that Joe Root hasn’t quite got on top of just yet and why he hasn’t made those big scores in Australia”.

“Babar did that and hit on the front foot back down the ground as well. These are just things that I look for as markers and indicators in touring batters when they come to Australia and Babar he ticked both those boxes,” he concluded