Babar Azam's cover drives receive mention in Pakistan’s ninth grade Physics textbook

Pakistan captain Babar Azam failed to add runs under his belt during the recently concluded Asia Cup 2022, but the cricketer is well known for his batting masterclass. Babar is currently the 3rd ranked Test batter in the ICC rankings and sits 1st and 2nd in the ODI and T20I batter rankings. He is the most famous for striking amazing cover drives and is currently making headlines for the same. 

In a bizarre development, a picture shared by Pakistani journalist Shiraz Hassan is currently going viral on social media, where Pakistan captain’s cover drive found its way in 9th Grade Physics syllabus. As per reports, the question was a part of the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education and was first shared on Reddit.

The question based on kinetic energy reads- 

Babar Azam has hit a cover drive by given kinetic energy of 150 J to the ball by his bat.

a) At what speed will the ball go the boundary if the mass of the ball is 120g?

b) How much kinetic energy footballer must impart to a football of mass 450g to make it move at this speed?

A look at the reactions to the tweet

The tweet quickly went viral on social media, as cricket fans from both India and Pakistan responded it to with interesting reactions. “Well, 2nd Answer = kinetic energy generated for footballee at same speed. I do bcoz i love phy,” said a fan. At the same time, another fan said, “physics the way i wanted to study”.

ICC's poll about the best cover drive in cricket

It is pertinent to mention that, ICC put out a poll back in 2021, asking followers to choose who among Babar, Virat Kohli, Joe Root, and Kane Williamson has the best cover drive. Interestingly, Babar emerged as the winner of the poll after beating Kohli by 0.1%. Out of the 2,60,143 people that voted, 1.1% people chose Root while Kane received 7.1% votes. Kohli was selected by 45.9% of people, while Babar topped the charts with 46% votes.

In the Asia Cup 2022, Babar hit 68 runs in six games at an average of 11.33 and hit the maximum of 30 runs in an innings. On the other hand, Kohli was the 2nd highest run scorer with 276 runs in five games at an average of 92.00 and strike rate of 147.59. Pakistan ended up finishing as the Asia Cup runner-up to Sri Lanka, while India exited from the Super 4 stage.