Revisiting Babar Azam’s limited-overs records
Babar Azam broke into the Pakistani limited overs side in May 2015. As Pakistan had already seen some of their best batsmen either retire, on the verge of retiring, or in a bad form, Babar was a welcome inclusion into the team.
He was seen as a regular young batsman who had been drafted into the spot held by the Pakistani legend Younis Khan, and there were many expectations attached to him. And deliver he sure did.
In just a short span of time, Babar has not only become a constant in Pakistan’s limited-overs starting XI but also arguably the best batsman Pakistan has seen in a long time.
Not only has Babar scored heavily in both ODIs and T20Is, but he has also done so very consistently and found himself reach the No.1 spot in ODI and T20Is rankings on different occasions. He is only the second Pakistani batsman after Misbah-ul-Haq to top the international rankings in the shortest format of the game.
Playing on the international level for only over three and a half years, Babar has amassed quite a few interesting limited overs records.
Let’s take a look at five of his extraordinary records in ODIs and T20Is.
#5 Second Fastest to 1,000 & 2,000 Runs in ODIs
Babar Azam not only started his ODI career on a high but has taken it to greater heights in subsequent innings.
He held the record for the fastest batsman to scored 1000 runs in ODIs by doing so in just 21 innings. This led to him joining greats like Sir Viv Richards, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, and Quinton De Kock who too had achieved the feat in just 21 innings.
Later, another Pakistani batsman Fakhar Zaman broke the record by reaching the milestone in just 19 innings, dropping the above-mentioned batsmen one spot to second fastest.
Continuing the great form in limited overs format, Babar became the second fastest to 2,000 runs joining the likes of the Asian Bradman Zaheer Abbas and Englishman Kevin Pietersen. All three men scored 2,000 ODI runs in 45 innings and are second to Hashim Amla’s record fastest 40 innings.