After Babar Azam scored his third T20I century during a five-match series against New Zealand at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Saturday, the Pakistan skipper is close to beating the record of Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma, who currently tops the International Cricket Council (ICC) list with four centuries.
Babar is the only Pakistan batter with more than one ton in the format. The hundred puts Babar close to the top of the list of batters with most T20I tons.
Following Rohit and Babar are Czech player Sabawoon Davizi (3 tons and 5 fifties), Australia’s Glenn Maxwell (3 tons and 10 fifties), New Zea-land’s Colin Munro (3 tons and 11 fifties) and Indian Suryakumar Yadav (3 tons and 13 fifties).
Helping his side to a 2-0 lead, the Pakistan skip-per put on a 99-run opening stand with wicket-keeper Mohammad Rizwan.
However, Rizwan was dismissed by Matt Henry, who also bowled out Fakhar Zaman in the next ball.
During the match, Babar managed to score his half-century on merely 36 balls and then slammed 51 runs off the next 22 deliveries, including 36 runs off the last three overs.
Babar smashed James Neesham for two fours and a six in the last over, completing his 100 runs off the final ball of the innings.
The performance of the skipper — who also shared an unbeaten 87-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Iftikhar Ahmed — helped his side re-strict their opponents to 154/7.
It is pertinent to mention here that both Babar and Rohit have 33 scores of fifty or more in T20Is, sec-ond only to Virat Kohli, who has 38 such scores.
During a chat with Azam after the match, Wasim said that the right-hander is the best player in the world at the moment.
“I have seen many innings but this was at the top of the line in my opinion, especially the way he [Ba-bar] carried on after we lost three wickets. The wicket was holding as well. But the way he played was simply brilliant. There’s no doubt that he’s the best player in the world,” he said.
It must be noted that Pakistan won the second T20I by 38 runs courtesy Azam’s brilliance with the bat and pacer Haris Rauf’s four-wicket haul.
“I am very happy to perform in this match,” said Azam, who is now the joint most successful T20I captain with 42 wins, alongside England´s Eoin Morgan and Afghanistan’s Asghar Afghan.
“I had two good partnerships and then our bowl-ing was once again excellent. We have got experi-enced and exciting young bowlers who gave us back-to-back wins.”—Agencies
