Babar Azam Becomes First Pakistani To Score Most International Runs In A Year
Babar Azam, the captain of the Pakistani team, added a new achievement to his résumé on Monday when he became the country’s first player to record the most international runs in a single calendar year.
The previous record was broken when the flamboyant batsman scored the 13th run of his inning against New Zealand in the first Test match played at the National Bank Cricket Arena in Karachi.
Babar Azam Goes Past Mohammad Yousuf
Azam broke Mohammad Yousuf’s 2006 record of 2435 runs after he hit 2,436 runs in 2022.
This year, the talented right-hander has scored 679 runs in ODI cricket and 735 runs in T20Is.
Azam also tied Sri Lankan batting legend Kumar Sangakkara’s record of 25 50-plus scores in a calendar year after scoring yet another fifty. The feat was accomplished by the left-hander in 2014.
Azam has 18 fifty-scores and seven hundred this year in international cricket.
When his innings totaled 45 on the third day of the Karachi Test, the right-handed batter reached this milestone.
Despite scoring 54 points, Babar was expelled. Babar is Pakistan’s sixth cricketer to achieve this feat after Younis Khan twice.
For the seventh time, a Pakistani batsman had amassed 1,000 Test runs in a single year.
Former captain Younis scored 1,179 runs in 2006 and another 1,064 runs in 2014. Mohammad Yousuf leads the leaderboard with 1,788 runs in the year 2006.
Other Pakistani hitters on the list include Azhar Ali (1,198 in 2016), Inzamam-ul-Haq (1,090 in 2000), and Mohsin Khan (1,029 in 1982).
Babar Azam Becomes 4th Batter To Complete 1000 Runs In Test This Year
Before Babar, only three other batters had hit 1,000 runs this season. Joe Root of England has 1,098 runs in 27 innings, Usman Khawaja of Australia has 1,079 runs in 19 innings, and England’s Jonny Bairstow has 1,061 runs in 19 innings.
Earlier, Azam won the toss and chose to bat against New Zealand in the first Test in Karachi on Monday.
Teams:
Pakistan: Babar Azam (captain), Abdullah Shafique, Imam-ul-Haq, Shan Masood, Saud Shakeel, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Agha Salman, Abrar Ahmed, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Wasim, Nauman Ali
New Zealand: Tim Southee (captain), Michael Bracewell, Tom Blundell, Devon Conway, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Henry Nicholls, Ajaz Patel, Ish Sodhi, Neil Wagner, Kane Williamson
