Babar Azam becomes first cricketer to finish as leading run scorer thrice in PSL

Peshawar Zalmi captain Babar Azam etched his name in history books, becoming the first cricketer to finish as the leading run-scorer on three occasions in the history of Pakistan Super League (PSL). The 29-year-old accumulated 569 runs in 11 games at an average of 56.9 in the ninth edition of the PSL and subsequently won the Hanif Mohammad Cap for scoring the most runs. 

It marked the second-best performance by a batter over the course of a season in the history of the prestigious T20 competition. His fellow Pakistan teammate Fakhar Zaman is first on the list after amassing 588 runs in 13 games for the Lahore Qalandars in the 2022 PSL season.

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Babar has now been rewarded with the Hanif Mohammad Cap thrice in his PSL career, a record no other player holds. Prior to his personal achievement in 2024, the right-handed batter finished as the league's top scorer in two consecutive seasons - 2020 and 2021. Playing for Karachi Kings, he scored 473 runs in 12 matches in 2020 and in 2021 he blitzed 554 runs in 11 games.

His best knock in the PSL 9 came against eventual champions Islamabad United in Lahore, where he smashed an unbeaten 111* off just 63 deliveries, which was laced with 14 boundaries and two maximums. This means that he has now scored 11 centuries in T20 cricket and is only the second player after Chris Gayle to smash more than 10 hundreds in the game's shortest format. In particular, the famed West Indies batter has struck 22 tons in his unparalleled T20 career.

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In addition, not many batters have scored more than 500 runs in a PSL season. Only three batters are on the list to hold this astonishing accomplishment - Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, and Fakhar Zaman. Babar and Rizwan have acquired a 500-plus score on three occasions, while Fakhar has achieved it only once.