Pakistan's Babar Azam departs for duck against England; netizens suspect 'nazar lag gayi?'

Pakistan skipper and the top-ranked ODI batsman Babar Azam departed for a two-ball duck in the first match against England on Thursday which left fans riled up. Babar Azam was caught at the slip by Zak Crawley as Saqib Mahmood wreaked havoc in his first spell leaving the Pakistani batting order in shambles. Netizens were quick to jump on the rare occasion of Babar Azam walking away for a duck which led to the inception of hilarious responses from the fans. 

Babar Azam's duck leads to meme riot

A user pointed to the Pakistani batsman's 'reaction' after Saqib Mahmood picked up his wicket.

Another user targetted Mahmood's quick two wickets in three deliveries and creatively used the scoreboard "Me after watching Babar Azam's performance" with the scoreboard indicating "W 0 W" suggesting a sad 'wow'.

A fan joked that Babar Azam had been dismissed as soon as he found the channel to watch the match.

Two users took a dig at Babar Azam suggesting that he only scored big against weaker opposition like Zimbabwe.

A Pakistani fan pointed out the top-ranked ODI batsman's last three international innings where he has scored 0, 2, and again 0.

Pakistan was buundled out for 144 runs in just 35.2 overs.

Babar Azam's 'consistent' run

A right-hand, top-order batsman known for his discipline and level-headed attitude, Babar Azam laid claim to a long-term spot in Pakistan's batting line-up with a strong performance in 2016, making three consecutive ODI hundreds against West Indies in the UAE, and a 90 in his third Test, in Hamilton. He was 22 years old at the time.

He was the second-fastest player to 2000 ODI runs and the second quickest to 1000 T20I runs. He already has more ODI hundreds than all but two Pakistan batsmen, and a World Cup hundred in a crunch game against New Zealand will go down as one of the great individual Pakistan ODI performances. While the first couple of years of Test cricket didn't bring the instantaneous success of white-ball cricket, steady improvements year on year have seen him rank among the best Test batsmen since the start of 2018, too.

(Image Credits: Babar Azam Twitter)