Babar Azam was born on 15 October 1994 in Lahore, Punjab to a Muslim family. He grew up in the Walled City of Lahore, and began his domestic cricket career there. He comes from a cricketing background, with three of his cousins having represented Pakistan internationally; Kamran Akmal, Umar Akmal and Adnan Akmal.

Early career

In May 2015, Azam was included in the Pakistani ODI squad for home series against Zimbabwe. He made his ODI debut in the third ODI on 31 May and scored an impressive fifty scoring 54 runs off 60 balls. His impressive debut earned him a place in both Test and ODI squads selected for an away series against Sri Lanka. He couldn't get a chance in Test series. During the ODI series he could only score 37 runs in two matches that he played.

Azam was included in the squad for the away ODI series against Zimbabwe in September 2015 but was not given a chance to play in the series. Pakistan won the series 2–1.

In October, he was dropped from the Test squad without playing a Test. He was retained in the ODI squad for the home series against England. In the first ODI of the four match series he scored 62 not out with a strike rate of 100 which helped Pakistan win the match. He had scores of 4, 22 and 51 in next three matches respectively. He finished the series with 139 runs at an average of 46.33.

In January 2016, Pakistan toured New Zealand. In the first ODI match, Azam scored 62 runs off 76 balls. Pakistan lost the match by 70 runs. The second ODI match was abandoned due to heavy rain. In the third ODI, he scored a brilliant 83 off just 77 balls. Despite Pakistan losing the match and the series, Azam was much praised by cricket experts. He was the leading run scorer in the ODI series with 145 runs in 2 innings at an average of 72.50.

In the five-match ODI series against England in July, he batted in five games and only scored 122 runs. Besides the Englan