Pakistan’s opening batter, Mohammad Rizwan, scored another scintillating half-century against Bangladesh in the curtain-raiser of the tri-nation tournament on Friday morning at Hagley Oval in New Zealand.
The wicket-keeper batter’s match-winning performance of 78 runs off 50 balls, featuring seven boundaries and two maximums, not only led Pakistan to a 21 runs victory but also added many T20 records to his book.
With this knock, the 30-year-old surpassed the milestone of 1,500 T20 runs in a calendar year for the second time, joining the list alongside his opening partner in the shortest format, Babar Azam and the universe boss, Chris Gayle.
It is worth noting that Gayle had scored 1,532 and 1,665 in 2012 and 2015 while Babar had scored 1,607 in 2019 and 1,779 in 2021. Wicket-keeper batter Rizwan, who got 2,036 T20 runs last year, has so far scored 1,519 with plenty of cricket left in the year.
Moreover, this was Rizwan’s 58th T20I innings, and his knock of 78 moved him ahead of Babar on the list of highest aggregate runs after 58 T20I innings. In their first 58 T20I innings, Babar scored 2,281 runs and Virat Kohli scored 2,012 runs.
Last week, Rizwan also tied Pakistani skipper, Babar Azam, for the fastest batter to reach 2,000 T20I runs, and also surpassed England’s Jos Buttler as the wicketkeeper with the most 50+ scores in international T20s.
