{"id":80517,"date":"2026-09-26T10:26:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/80517"},"modified":"2026-09-26T10:26:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:26:41","slug":"babar-azam-falls-early-on-long-awaited-first-class-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/80517","title":{"rendered":"Babar Azam falls early on long-awaited first-class return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size:16px;line-height:1.6\">\n<p><strong>Pakistan Test captain Babar Azam endured a disappointing return to first-class cricket as he was dismissed for just 12 runs during the ongoing President\u2019s Trophy Grade-I match at Abbottabad Cricket Stadium on Saturday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Babar, representing Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), made his return to first-class cricket after a gap of seven years.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old last featured in the format for the now-defunct Central Punjab, whom he led to the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy title.<\/p>\n<p>However, his comeback innings against Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) lasted only 20 balls before fast bowler Arshad Iqbal dismissed him with a bouncer.<\/p>\n<p>Babar attempted to take on the short delivery but failed to make a significant contribution in his first competitive red-ball appearance in seven years.<\/p>\n<p>The Pakistan captain had returned to domestic first-class cricket with the aim of getting valuable time in the longer format amid a prolonged struggle for runs in Test cricket.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-=\"\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Babar Azam dismissed by a bouncer in his first domestic match after 7 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qwYkcfJJun\">pic.twitter.com\/qwYkcfJJun<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sheri. (@CallMeSheri1_) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CallMeSheri1_\/status\/2103751468985811107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 26, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Babar has not scored a Test century since December 2022, while his numbers in the format have declined considerably since the beginning of 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, he has averaged 30.43 in Test cricket and managed only eight half-centuries across his last 39 innings.<\/p>\n<p>His first-class comeback was therefore viewed as an opportunity to regain confidence and rhythm in red-ball cricket, but the early dismissal has extended the wait for a substantial score.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/arynews.tv\/watch-babar-azam-falls-early-on-long-awaited-first-class-return\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan Test captain Babar Azam endured a disappointing return to first-class cricket as he was dismissed for just 12 runs during the ongoing President\u2019s Trophy Grade-I match at Abbottabad Cricket Stadium on Saturday. Babar, representing Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), made his return to first-class cricket after a gap of seven years. The 31-year-old last featured in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":16,"label":"Pakistan"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-content\/uploads\/Babar-Azam-2-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"frkhokhar@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/author\/frkhokhargmail-com"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":16,"name":"Pakistan","slug":"pakistan","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":16,"taxonomy":"category","description":"All about Pakistan","parent":0,"count":6347,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":16,"category_count":6347,"category_description":"All about Pakistan","cat_name":"Pakistan","category_nicename":"pakistan","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80519,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80517\/revisions\/80519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}