Pakistan’s Babar Azam was among 16 captains, who addressed the press conference at Plaza Ballroom in Melbourne ahead of T20 World Cup. While it was the first time that all captains came together before the marquee event kicks off in Geelong on Sunday, it was a special day for Babar as he was celebrating his 29th birthday on Saturday, October 15.
As Babar turned 28, the press wished him ‘Happy Birthday’ and the 15 other captains to decided to wish him with a special gesture. The moment the press conference came to an end, Australian skipper Aaron Finch played a good host and brought a cake for Babar. Babar, who was sitting alongside Scotland’s Richie Berrington cut the cake in front of the media. However, this wasn’t the only one Babar cut at the Ballroom on Saturday.
The Pakistan captain also cut a two-tier green-coloured cake outside the press room when he was surrounded by all other captains. ICC shared the images from the birthday celebration captioning, “Happy birthday @babarazam258. That cake looks good!
Babar, who endured a poor run in the Asia Cup, has gotten into some good run-scoring form going into the T20 World Cup. Babar scored an unbeaten century and an 87* in the 7-match series against England and backed it up with a couple of good scores of 79* and 55 against New Zealand and Bangladesh in the recently concluded tri-series, which Pakistan won.
The tri-series win in New Zealand will keep Pakistan in good stead after coming off from Asia Cup final loss and series defeat to England at home. Pakistan reached the semi-finals last year in the T20 World Cup where they ran into a marauding Matthew Wade and with a couple of star players recovering from injury, the 2009 T20 champions will hope to go all the way this year.
