Records have now become Babar Azam’s closest friend. Like to India’s Virat Kohli, the Pakistani captain regularly breaks some record everytime he scores significantly in any format. This was accurate for the Peshawar Zalmi vs. Islamabad United PSL Elimination 1 game. On Thursday in Lahore, Peshawar upset Islamabad by 12 runs, with Babar Azam serving as the catalyst with a blazing 39-ball 64 to start the innings.
Babar reached the 9000 run milestone in T20 cricket the quickest. Chris Gayle’s previous mark was surpassed by him. Babar required 245 innings, compared to 249 for Gayle. Aaron Finch and David Warner of Australia are next on the list behind Virat Kohli, who is third with 9000 T20 runs in 271 innings (in 281 innings).
The impossible task of bowling to Babar Azam in his present form was brilliantly articulated by English cricket analyst and former England cricketer Nick Knight.
“You can’t bowl top of off-stump. You can’t bowl short. You can’t bowl full. You just can’t bowl to him at the moment,” said Knight during commentary.
Babar had a strike rate of 164 and 10 boundaries over his complete innings. Babar’s sixth PSL half-century of the year was this one.
In recent years, Babar has thrived in the game’s shortest format. He has nine T20 hundreds to his record, which is the most of any cricketer in the globe since 2019.
His performance in the elimination game on Thursday laid the groundwork for Peshawar, who batted first, to score 183 for 8 points.
