Pakistan all-format captain, Babar Azam, struck yet another half-century to help his side chase down a target of 174 runs in the last group stage match of the tri-series against Bangladesh at Hagley Oval in Christchurch.
With a match-winning effort of 55 runs off 40 balls, which included nine boundaries, the right-hander achieved many milestones, including completing a century of fifty-plus scores in international cricket.
The 27-year-old also reached the milestone of 11,000 international runs across all formats, becoming the 11th Pakistani batter to do so. Before the match, the Lahore-born cricketer needed 53 runs to reach the milestone.
The all-format captain has now joined the list of the Inzamam-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Javed Miandad, Saleem Malik, Saeed Anwar, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, and Misbah-ul-Haq.
Babar has scored 3,122 runs at an average of 47.30 in red-ball cricket, 4,664 runs at an average of 59.79 in ODIs, and 3,216 runs at an average of 44.05 in the shortest format of cricket.
| Sr. No. | Player | Inns | Runs | Ave | 100s | 50s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inzamam-ul-Haq | 547 | 20541 | 43.51 | 35 | 129 |
| 2 | Younis Khan | 491 | 17790 | 39.88 | 41 | 83 |
| 3 | Mohammad Yousuf | 426 | 17134 | 45.81 | 39 | 95 |
| 4 | Javed Miandad | 407 | 16213 | 46.99 | 31 | 93 |
| 5 | Saleem Malik | 410 | 12938 | 36.96 | 20 | 76 |
| 6 | Saeed Anwar | 335 | 12876 | 41.00 | 31 | 68 |
| 7 | Mohammad Hafeez | 429 | 12780 | 32.51 | 21 | 64 |
| 8 | Shoaib Malik | 428 | 11855 | 33.96 | 12 | 61 |
| 9 | Shahid Afridi | 502 | 11148 | 24.12 | 11 | 51 |
| 10 | Misbah-ul-Haq | 315 | 11132 | 44.35 | 10 | 84 |
| 11 | Babar Azam | 251 | 11002 | 50.70 | 26 | 74 |
Earlier this month, the right-hander passed the 8,000 T20 runs mark, becoming the youngest batter in history to do so and the second-fastest batter after West Indian legend, Chris Gayle.
Babar Rizwan has scored a million runs but we lost to England’s B team touring us, at home. Losing at home for Pakistan in cricket was considered impossible. In fact, winning at home was never considered an achievement because it was expected that it would happen. Yet, now our team lost to an England side that toured us just because there are barely a dozen countries that play the sport and they had nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do. Our tape (base)ball players could defeat the national team, if they didn’t even try.
England are a very strong side and Babar/Rizwan made it possible for Pakistan to compete against England as it was a closely fought series.Without these two Pakistan would have lost by 6-1 or 7-0