'Shame on ICC': Twitterati reacts to Babar Azam's exclusion from T20I Team of the Decade after Shoaib Akhtar's outrage

The announcement of the Teams of the Decade by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for Men and Women in all the formats have met with mixed reactions as far as the choice of certain players is concerned.

The outrage was severe regarding one such player, Pakistan's current all-format captain Babar Azam. Many users on social media felt that Babar should have been included in the T20I team of the year given his consistency and the number of runs he has scored in the last few years.

Not just Babar, not a single player from Pakistan could find a place in any of the Men's Teams of the Decade, which brought further criticism of the ICC and the criteria of selection.

Babar, who has been playing T20 cricket since 2016 has played 44 matches and out of those he has batted in 42 innings scoring 1681 runs at an average of 50.94, including 16 fifty-plus scores.

Since it was the team of the decade, some of the users felt that his ouster was justifiable since he has played in only 5 of the 10 years of the decade, while most of the selected ones have played for more duration of time than Babar.

Some of the users even compared Babar's statistics with that of South Africa's maestro AB de Villiers, who was selected in the XI, where apart from the strike-rate, Babar beat De Villiers in every department very comprehensively. Many users also felt that the team was an IPL XI rather than a World T20I XI, since they felt that players like Dawid Malan, Shaheen Afridi, Brendon McCullum were missing from the line-ups.

Here are some of the reactions:

Shame on you. @ICC
Why not include. #babarazam#ICCAwards pic.twitter.com/1JszSaqiNj

— Zeshan Ali (@imzashi56) December 27, 2020

Is this fair enough to select #AbdeVilliers in ICC T20I team of the Decade instead of #BabarAzam after these stats?#ICCAwards pic.twitter.com/NAPBEHDyHg

— Robert Winston (@ImRobertWin) December 27, 2020

Story of icc office#Babarazam pic.twitter.com/HyDWAHLRKr

(@Pakturke) December 27, 2020

Disappointed to see #Pakistani players miss out on cricket team(s) of the decade. I certainly do believe that Babar Azam deserved a spot over Finch (in T20i) and Shakib (in ODIs). He’s compared with the greats of the decade yet missed out on the team(s) of the decade. Sad @ICC

— Basit Ishtiaq (@basit_ishtiaq) December 27, 2020

AB Deviller Vs Babar Azam

InninGs : 44 | 42
Runs : 1082 | 1681
S.R : 143 | 130
AvG : 27.7 | 50.9
Fifties : 6 | 16
Centuries : 0 | 0

Babar Azam Don't Need Any Shitty Team To Justify His Class pic.twitter.com/jmodThoUu7

— M S C (@_friendlycheema) December 27, 2020

I believe that ICC stands for *Indian cricket council* rather than international cricket soul. Here are the stats of our legendary batsman and world class batsman.
#ICCAwards#BabarAzam #ICCAwards pic.twitter.com/IbiHd4s1VL

— Ehtisham Siddique (@Shami_54) December 27, 2020

Babar azam 68% of his T20I runs and
11 out of 16 fifties are in winning cause #ICCTeamOfDecade #ICCAwards pic.twitter.com/Rf8WaNNcMB

— #Sheheryaar #Khattak (@IAMsheheryaar) December 27, 2020

After Babar Azam Not Mention In T20 Award Of Decade ;
Indian Be Like :- #babarazam #T20 #T20TeamoftheDecade #ShoaibAkhtar #PakistanCricket #viratkholi #Dhoni #MSDhoni #T20I #ABDevilliers pic.twitter.com/jz80zFxq0j

— Shashwat Shukla (@Shashwa64011437) December 27, 2020

After not being selected by icc Babar Azam to @icc #ICCAwards2020 #ICCAwards pic.twitter.com/qZoPkF2YXZ

— Ujjawal Sharma (@SharmaJi720) December 27, 2020

No Babar Azam David Malan ?
I think ICC announced IPL Team decade rather than World Cricket.#ICCAwards2020 ic.twitter.com/gowM0rb3OY

— Hasnayn khan (@iamhsnyn) December 27, 2020