Pakistan Cricket Team’s all-format captain Babar Azam won the ARY News’ Person Of The Year 2021 poll followed closely by the late national hero and celebrated mountaineer Ali Sadpara.
Like all years, minus the pandemic one, ARY News held a poll to name Person Of The Year and a huge number of people voted for all five nominees but the cricket team’s captain won the poll like he won the hearts of the whole Pakistan with memorable victories as captain and numerous individual records.
Babar Azam and Co not only broke years-long World Cup Jinx against India by beating them by 10 wickets in this year’s ICC T20 World Cup but also registered five back to back victories. Babar was the only player to pass 300 runs for the tournament, doing so at an average of over 60 and at a strike rate 126.
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At year end, Babar Azam is the No.1 batter in both ODI and T20 formats of the game. He is also nominated for ICC ODI Player Of The Year award as he scored 405 runs despite only playing six matches. He also scored two centuries.
Babar Azam will also lead Pakistan Super League franchise Karachi Kings in the upcoming PSL season scheduled to take place between January 27 to February 27.
Here are the full results of the poll!
Here are the other four nominees and we genuinely feel that they all owned the year.
Dr Sania Nishtar
In line with PM Imran Khan’s vision and directives, the Chairperson of Ehsaas Program, Dr Sania Nishtar, started a number of programs to provide relief to the poor amid rising inflation and adverse socio-economic conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic’s earliest days.
Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme helped a huge number of families during the pandemic lockdowns while Ehsaas Kifalat Programme helped hundreds of women with regular financial aid.
Ehsaas ‘Koi Bhoka Na Soye‘ programme distributes cooked food among needy in all the major cities of Pakistan While the recently launched Ehsaas Ration Riyayat Programme, based on a food subsidy package for low-income families, aims to provide relief to an estimated 30 million poor families through ration subsidy.
Students from poor families can also apply for scholarships while as a part of mother and child health programme, the Ehsaas nashonuma programme offers help to toddlers and their mothers with cash and awareness programs to overcome the longstanding issue of stunted growth.
Ali Sadpara
Nobody knows when he actually breathed his last but that he did it amongst the mountains is for sure and that is perhaps what Sadpara was born for.
Mohammad Ali Sadpara, the man who held the distinction of being the only Pakistani to have summited eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, the man who was credited with the first-ever winter ascent of the world’s ninth highest peak, Nanga Parbat, left us this year.
Muhammad Ali Sadpara, John Snorri from Iceland and Jaun Pablo Mohr from Chile were on the mission to scale K2 in winter but lost contact after they started their push for the K2 summit from camp 3 in the first week of February. His body was recovered from K2 bottleneck in July.
Though there is no doubt that Sadpara always made Pakistan proud and no tribute is enough to pay respects to his services for the country.
Arshad Nadeem
Arshad Nadeem, the Khanewal-born athlete, made all Pakistanis proud by making it to the final of men’s javelin throw competition in Tokyo Olympics.
On August 4, he made it to the final of men’s javelin throw with a throw of 85.16m, well beyond the qualification mark of 83.50m. His first attempt was 78.50m.
Arshad Nadeem had sealed his spot in the athletics competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics with a record breaking performance at the South Asian Games in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Nadeem won the men’s gold on day 7 with a new event record distance of 86.29 metres.
With the Olympic qualification standard set at 85 metres, it was enough to also confirm his place at the Games in 2020.
The 22-year-old competed at the Doha 2019 IAAF World Championships and is the first Pakistani track and field athlete to achieve direct qualification for an Olympics since before he was born.
Though he missed out on the medal but his hard work and determination despite all odds, made him a star overnight.
Adnan Malik
Although we all know, what he did was priceless, and no award or poll is enough to pay tribute to the man who tried to shield his fellow worker and Sri Lankan guest Priyantha Kumara from mob-lynching in Sialkot on December 3, 2021.
As a social media user said, “It was not only Priyantha he was trying to save but Pakistan’s honour too”.
Adnan Malik, the production manager of the same factory where Priyantha Kumara worked tried his best to shelter and save Priyantha from the mob, endangering his own life by physically trying to shield the victim.
Two days later, when most of the suspects involved in the case were arrested, Prime Minister Imran Khan announced Tamgha-e-Shujaat for Adnan Malik. Malik explained that his late Sri Lankan fellow couldn’t even write or read Urdu and was a dutiful and honest man.
We repeat, no tribute is enough to pay respects to our hero Adnan Malik.
