LAHORE: Pakistan batsman Babar Azam will miss the remainder of the two-match series against England after fracturing a bone in his left forearm on the second day of the first Test at Lord’s on Friday. The 23-year-old righthander top-scored with 68 to help the tourists reach 350-8, a lead of 166, but retired hurt before the close of play after being struck by a Ben Stokes delivery. “In that last session we took him off the field because he couldn’t grip his bat properly, we treated him for pain,” Pakistan physiotherapist Cliffe Deacon said in an interview on the Pakistan Cricket Board’s official Twitter account twitter.com/TheRealPCBMedia. “We decided to do a precautionary X-ray at the end of the day’s play … when we got to the hospital the X-ray confirmed that there was a fracture of the forearm, just above the wrist. Normally with these sort of fractures (recovery) varies between four to six weeks.” The Pakistan management have decided not to call up a replacement batsman. The squad includes Usman Salahuddin, Fakhar Zaman and Sami Aslam as spare specialist batsmen. Babar has been billed as Pakistan’s next big batting hope after a strong start to his international career. However, it has been his limited-overs form that has really stood out, with him averaging 53.00 and 51.11 in T20Is and ODIs respectively while his Test numbers have remained more modest. Before this match he was averaging under 25 in Tests, and is yet to score a hundred, making the injury, coming as it did when he was playing so well, all the more ill-timed. Published in Daily Times, May 27th 2018.