Predicting opening combinations of all teams for T20 World Cup 2020

2. Pakistan- Babar Azam and Kamran Akmal

It’s ironic that Pakistan is the No.1 ranked side in the world but they still don’t have a settled opening pair. But, that has unfortunately been the story of Pakistan in the past 12 months as they have grappled with the loss in form of a plethora of its top players that propelled them to the numero-uno spot- including opener Fakhar Zaman and Ahmed Shahzad.

Between January 2018-19, Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman opened the innings on seven occasions and racked up 248 runs at an average of 35.42 while Shahzad and Zaman opened four times, accumulating 217 runs at an average of 54.25. 

But Zaman’s dismal form in 2019 where he managed a total of 50 runs in 8 innings at an average of 6.25 and Shahzad’s lowly returns in the series against Sri Lanka [17 runs in 2 innings] meant Pakistan had to look elsewhere for Babar’s partner. The latest in the list is Ahsan Ali, who opened with the Azam in the recently-concluded T20I series against Bangladesh.

The pair could only manage 6 runs in 2 innings but these are still early days. But, in-case, Ali doesn’t do well in the future series, Pakistan can look at Kamran Akmal, who has been in whirlwind form in domestic cricket and PSL for some time now.