Babar Azam beats Virat Kohli & Hashim Amla to most runs after 100 innings in men's ODIs
Babar Azam is now the highest run-scorer after 100 innings in men's ODIs. The Pakistan captain broke Hashim Amla's record of 4,946 runs during the second of the three-ODI series by reaching the figure of 5,142 against Afghanistan in Sri Lanka on Thursday. Babar is the only one with more than 5,000 runs after 100 innings.
Afghanistan made 300 after batting first at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium in Hambantota. Pakistan had a fruitful opening partnership before Fakhar Zaman got out after an aggressive 30 (34) in the ninth over.
Babar Azam hit an assured 66-ball 53 with six fours to help lift the score from 52-1 to 170-1 before playing early against a seam-up delivery left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi and chipping it to mid-on for an easy catch.
This was Babar's 26th ODI fifty, which is the second-most after Viv Richards (34 fifties) among the top-10 run-scorers after 100 innings. The Pakistan captain has scored 18 hundreds too - the most in the list. Babar's average of 58.49 in those 100 innings is also the best among the top 10.
West Indies' legendary former batter Viv Richards, their current captain Shai Hope, and England's Joe Root make up the rest of the top five. India's Virat Kohli, whose record is often compared with Babar Azam, is ninth with 4,230 runs at an average of 49.76.
Babar Azam is at the top after 100 innings, who leads after 150 and 200 innings?
Amla still holds the record for the most runs after 150 innings - 7,032. Quite astonishingly, the South African is the top run-scorer for every innings milestone from 101-174. He also holds most records from the 29th to 100th innings but Babar chipped away with some of them recently.
Amla is also the top run-scorer after 176 innings but, apart from that, from 175 to 265, it's all Kohli. After 200 ODI innings in 2018, Kohli had 9,588 runs at an average of 58.11 - a record that would require immense consistency and longevity to be broken.