Pakistan’s white-ball captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan became the most successful T20 pair during the match against England at The Oval on Thursday.
Babar and Rizwan, widely considered one of the greatest batting pairs in T20s, continued their impeccable performances as a duo and became the first pair to score 24 scores of 50 or over in the shorter format.
Out of those 24 fifty-plus stands, 10 were converted into century partnerships by the Pakistani duo.
Babar and Rizwan broke the record of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) former opening duo of Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli who had 23 fifty-plus scores.
Other than the Pakistan cricket team, Babar and Rizwan also played together at the Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchise Karachi Kings.
In T20 cricket, Babar and Rizwan now have 3,227 runs as a pair, only behind Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers who scored 3,175 runs as a duo.
Remember, Babar also became the first Pakistani and second overall batter to score 4,000 T20I runs during Thursday’s T20I.
The 29-year-old is only the second batter to achieve this feat after India's Virat Kohli, who has 4,037 runs.
Most runs in T20Is
Virat Kohli- 4,037
Babar Azam - 3,923
Rohit Sharma - 3,974
Paul Stirling - 3,589
Azam, 29, is one of the best batters in the shorter format as he has multiple records to his name. The right-hander also became the first skipper to score 2,500 runs in T20Is.
Earlier today, England won the toss and opted to bowl first.
The four-match series is led by the hosts 1-0 as the first and third T20Is were called off without a ball bowled due to persistent rain in Leeds and Cardiff, respectively.
Playing XIs
Pakistan: Usman Khan, Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam (c), Fakhar Zaman, Azam Khan (wk), Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Amir, Naseem Shah
England: Jonny Bairstow, Phil Salt (wk), Will Jacks, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali (c), Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Chris Jordan, Mark Wood
Faizan Lakhani Faizan Lakhani is Deputy Editor (Sports) at Geo News.- Babar Azam
- Mohammad Rizwan
