How Azhar Ali became Sada Veer

A tribute to the man who swooped in in the darkest hours of Pakistan cricket

What is the legacy of a cricketer?

How we can measure that?

I mean no definite answer exists for now. Stats alone can't be used to measure the impact of a player on his team.

This is a question that we will answer at the end. For now, let us reminisce over the legacy of Azhar Ali.

A youngster who lacked any exceptional flair or aesthetics but had a solid defensive compact game. Azhar burst into the scene during what was probably the blackest year in the history of Pakistan cricket.

And yet, how he managed to represent the country for almost 13 years.

This was possible by scoring runs.

A lot of runs, of course.

I mean, when you're only behind the Fab 4 in terms of runs scored since the start of the 2010s, then you did a pretty fine job. 7000 test runs are a lot. Even Bradman never got there. Ended up 6 runs short of that mark.

The Rise (2010-May 2017)

So how did it start for Azhar Ali?

He made his international debut against Australia on 13th July 2010, at the Home of Cricket, Lord’s.

He didn't announce his arrival until his 5th test. In the four-match test series that followed against England. England were on the verge of sealing the series, with Pakistan trailing 2-0 heading into the third test at the Oval.

England scored 233 in the first innings. Azhar came in to bat with Pakistan hanging in there at 110-4, just about halfway there. He played a knock of 92* and gave Pakistan a 75-run lead. The lead proved to be the deciding factor of the result as England could only score 222 runs in the next innings, and Pakistan only had to chase down a mere target of 148.

From that day onwards, the journey started. Azhar showed he was more than capable of donning the whites for Pakistan, and that he had the focus and grit to succeed even in difficult conditions.

We move forward to 2014.

Azhar had two disaster series vs South Africa at home and away, and hadn't scored a Test hundred in the last 18 months.

Sri Lanka came to the United Arab Emirates in January 2014 for a three-match Test series.

Heading into the final Test, Sri Lanka had a 1-0 lead, having won the previous Test in Dubai by 8 wickets. Sri Lanka set Pakistan a target of 302 to chase down in the last 2 sessions of day 5.

Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera were to bowl on a pitch where Saeed Ajmal and Abdul Rahman got 7 wickets in the second innings against Sri Lanka.

Yet Azhar came at #3, scoring 103 runs off 137 balls at a strike rate of 75 on a Day 5 UAE track against peak Herath. He was dismissed at 295-5, where at that point Pakistan were just 7 runs away from a famous victory.

The chase was completed in 57 overs. It was BazBall before it was even a thing. Pakistan were reinventing test cricket in the deserts of UAE but no one was noticing us. Unfortunately, our own people too have always looked down on us.

The peak of a batter is measured by his best five years usually. For Azhar, that time period is June 2012- May 2017. During those five years, he played 39 matches, in which he scored 3457 runs at an average of 48.7, scoring 12 hundreds and just as many fifties.

A ratio of 3 tests per hundred. Basically, every series had an Azhar hundred during those years, a world-class peak for a top-order batsman.

The Decline ( May 2017-Dec 2019)

Inevitable for any player, his decline came and came hard in 2017. Around 2018, pitches around the world got tougher for batting. Teams started making tough tracks to win more, dubbed the “pace pandemic.” Azhar suffered massively from this phenomenon, as well as from the lack of stability in Pakistan’s test team. There were no regular openers and the entire middle order was either too young or too bad.

He averaged just 26 in his next 15 tests and had only 1 test hundred for only 736 runs. For most senior batsmen, these returns aren't sufficient. The only reason he wasn't dropped was no obvious replacement was in sight (sadly, that's the case even today).

The Reckoning (Dec 2019-2022)

Yet as is the case with every good batsman, Azhar bounced back and came back into form. It started from that 100 vs Sri Lanka. Then another SENA hundred at the young age of 36 (just like Misbah) in August 2020 to save the Southampton Test, scoring 141*.

The second-highest run-scorer from Pakistan’s top 5 was Babar Azam that day with 11 runs vs a peaking Jimmy Anderson. But yet, an aging Azhar survived and did what he does best: tire out the opposition bowlers and save the test.

This was followed by an innings of 93 runs in New Zealand at Christchurch on January 2021. The scores of the other top 5 Pakistani Batsmen that day read as:

0
25
1
2

Pakistan were 83-4 and Azhar was dismissed on 227-6. As always, he did his job well. Pakistan mustered only 186 runs in 2nd innings as Kyle Jamieson ran riot. Azhar top scored again with 37 on 98 balls, being the only one who could survive the riot.

Azhar averaged 42.6 in his last 21 Tests with 4 hundreds and 1366 runs.

Clubbing his 2020-21 and 2022 with his 2018-19 lean patch is a grave injustice.

People blame him for lack of impact when against Australia in the Lahore test, he scored 78 runs and was a part of a 150-run 3rd wicket partnership with Abdullah Shafique. Azhar was dismissed at 214-2. It was surely his fault our middle order collapsed for 268 all out.

He played only 2 tests after that. Yet no one will talk about this innings because the middle order collapsed from such a good position.

Now, I repeat my question from the start of this article.

What is the legacy of a cricketer?

How we can measure that?

Everyone has his own way to rate someone.

For me, it's pretty simple.

The first half is for your performance. Things you do on the field, the runs you score, and the records you achieve.

The other half is your character, your ability to be a perfect role model for the new guys, to leave a footprint that is admired by everyone.

If you're a shit human being, then how skillful you are will become irrelevant. If you're leaving your team in a state worse than when you inherited it, you're not worthy of being called a legend.

Azhar can be proud of his legacy. He passed down to the new generation every good quality he had: resilience, hard work, humility, to focus, to be determined, and the ability to keep fighting no matter what.

Unlike Pakistan’s legends from the past, I’m pretty sure he helped guys like Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan to become better human beings. He was a perfect role model.

Pakistan cricket came back after Lords 2010 due to guys like Azhar Ali. We owe it to him and his fellows. They gained back respect for Pakistan cricket through their hard work, success, and passion. I mean an ICC trophy and a test mace with a formidable home record are definitely successes. It came after the spot-fixing saga, making it extra special.

It is fitting Azhar was crucial to both of them. As important to the test mace as he was to the Champions Trophy trophy. A guy who consistently delivered for Pakistan.

That six to Ravichandran Ashwin defines Azhar Ali; he was the one who helmed the charge against the Indian bowlers that day and started our journey to victory. Nature rewarded him that day.

The sun shone as brightly as it could that day for our Ajju Bhai.

Azhar was never talented enough to become the best in the world but he was still valuable, reliable, and useful on his own.

I was a young kid when Azhar came, now I am halfway into my 20s. I remember each and every series, every bit of the journey. Azhar felt like a real-life brother to us diehards of Pakistan Cricket who watched tests in UAE while bunking school classes.

The kind of brothers who save you whenever you're in the dark, the ones who guide you from the worst times of your lives.

We call them veer in Punjabi. It has a bit of respect and love in it. This is what Azhar was to us.

He was our Ajju Bhai, sada veer ty para.

Go well into retierment, Ajju Bhai.