Pakistan all-format captain Babar Azam to be honored with Sitara-e-Imtiaz. Two others will receive civil awards on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence.
Pakistani skipper Babar Azam is to conferred with the prestigious award, Sitara-e-Imtiaz – Pakistan’s third-highest civilian honour.
Meanwhile, Pakistan women’s captain Bismah Maroof will receive Tamgah-e-Imtiaz. And Blind cricketer Masood Jan will receive the Pride of Performance award.
To note that the President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi conferred Pakistan civil awards on 253 Pakistani citizens as well as foreign nationals on the occasion of 75th Diamond Jubilee Anniversary of the country.
The citizens bestowed with awards for showing excellence and courage in different fields. The investiture ceremony of these awards will take place on Pakistan Day, March 23 2023.
Babar Azam is a right-hand, top-order batsman. Babar Azam claimed 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.
Born in Lahore and a first cousin to the Akmal brothers, Azam made his way up through age-group cricket. His journey began at an under-15 world championship in 2008 and he played two under-19 World Cups in 2010 and 2012, where he was Pakistan’s top run-scorer.
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 batsman. 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.
The Leading Sports Management Group took twitter to announce his achievement which was later retweeted by Babar Azam himself.