Do we like Babar Azam?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A clean record on the harm test, but the harassment allegation is undecided and the sources are thin on who he is off the field.
Babar Azam was born in Lahore in 1994 and was marked out as a special talent from his under-19 days. He played two Under-19 World Cups, captaining the side in 2012. He debuted for Pakistan in 2015 and scored a fifty on his ODI debut and another on his Test debut.
Under his captaincy the team never won an ICC title, and the job came with a lot of noise from Pakistan's famously brutal commentary class. Through 2026 that noise has been loud. He had a rough T20 World Cup, was left out of the March ODI series in Bangladesh, and had the selectors arguing in public about his fitness.
Then came the comeback. He was the top run-scorer in the 2026 PSL, with two centuries, and led Peshawar Zalmi to the title. He said he wasn't meeting his own standards in the lean spell and that such phases are normal. He was recalled for the Australia ODIs, and teammates called him the backbone of the middle order.
The serious thing on his file is a long-running allegation. A woman alleged sexual harassment, and a lower court ordered police to register a case. In March 2026 the Lahore High Court set that order aside. His lawyer argued the complaint was baseless and that she demanded money after he refused. That's a procedural win rather than a trial verdict, and the other side's arguments weren't reported in what I read, so it stays unresolved.
On the harm test, there's honestly nothing. No remarks about women, LGBTQ+ people, migrants or the climate turned up, no conspiracy rabbit holes, and no dodgy co-stars or sponsors. He's a quiet bloke who lets the bat talk, which also means we know little about what he thinks beyond cricket. That's a pass on what we can see, with a thin record.
On the nice side, he said during the 2022 floods that the team would donate to those affected. The team also wore black armbands, and he later played in a flood-relief exhibition match in 2025. The one blemish on the field is a minor one: in November 2025 he admitted hitting the stumps with his bat after a dismissal and took a 10 per cent match-fee fine.