(ESPNCRICINFO) – Like he has done all through the tournament, Babar Azam set anchor and scored his fourth half-century of the competition while other batters rallied around him to lift Pakistan to their fifth win of the competition. Previously, it was Mohammad Rizwan or Asif Ali who brought out the fireworks while Babar held up one end, but on this occasion it was their two most experienced batters who entertained the Sharjah crowd.

Shoaib Malik, who made his international debut in 1999, smacked an unbeaten 54 in 18 balls. Mohammad Hafeez, who made his international debut in 2003, shellacked 31 in 19. And after their hitting lifted Pakistan to 189, another top bowling effort saw them defeat Scotland rather comfortably by 72 runs and seal a semi-final date with Australia after becoming the only team with a 100 per cent win record in the group stage of the competition.

Babar makes it a habit
It doesn’t matter if the scoring is tough. Lesser mortals like Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman might struggle on a two-paced surface, but if you’re Babar, you will find a way to score runs. Although the strike-rate wasn’t high, he picked his boundary-balls smartly. Wide balls were smacked square through the off side, tossed up deliveries from slower bowlers were met with a skip down the track, and half-trackers were walloped off the back foot. That ensured Pakistan kept ticking along even though Rizwan and Fakhar combined to score just 21 runs in 30 balls.

After reaching his fifty in 40 balls, Babar smacked two sixes off the spinners, Hamza Tahir and Mark Watt to show the first signs of Pakistan changing gears to make up for a slow start. Eventually, he fell in the 18th over, but by then his strike-rate had bloomed to over 140 when he fell for 66.