Babar Azam says innings in South Africa against Dale Steyn gave confidence to excel at Test match level

Pakistan’s top batsman and T20I skipper Babar Azam says he spent a good part of 2019 correcting the mistakes he made in Test cricket and now has a better understanding of the format’s nuances.

Azam said he wasn’t quite living up to his own expectations in Test cricket for the last two years.

“This year, I worked on improving the mistakes I made in the format and was able to overcome some of them which helped me make some runs,” Azam said. “The more you play the longer format, the more you understand the nuances of the game and find your way.”

In six Tests, Azam scored 616 runs at 68.44 at a hugely impressive strike-rate of 72.30 last year with the help of three centuries and three half-centuries while in 20 ODIs, he scored 1,092 runs at 60.66. His strike-rate was 93.30 and the runs tally included three centuries and six half-centuries.