Stats: Babar Azam displaces Mohammad Hafeez as Pakistan's highest run-scorer in T20Is

Another day and another milestone for Pakistan skipper Babar Azam. The right-handed batter has made a habit of this. Hasn’t he? During the second T20I against Bangladesh on Saturday (November 20), Azam went past Mohammad Hafeez and became Pakistan’s highest run-getter in T20 internationals. The 27-year-old now has 2515 runs 69 appearances in the format while Hafeez has 2514 runs in 119 games.

Making his T20I debut in 2016, Azam didn’t take long in becoming a vital cog of the T20I team. While his strike rate and ability to play big shots were questioned in the initial part of his career, Azam worked on his game and kept on improving. In fact, he is the top-ranked ODI and T2OI batter at the moment.

As far as the overall list is concerned, Azam is now the seventh highest run-scorer in T20 internationals. Interestingly, Azam is the only batter in the top-10 highest run-scorer list to play less than 70 matches. This speaks volumes of his consistency. Moreover, he is the fastest batter to complete 2500 runs in the format, getting the feat in 62 innings.

Babar Azam is the fastest batter to complete 2,500 runs

Speaking of the batter’s overall numbers, Azam has 2515 in 69 matches with his average and strike rate being 46.57 and 129.50. This also include 24 half-centuries and a scinthillating century. With Azam being just 27, he has a long way to go and it would be intresting to see what more records he shatters in the time to come.

Meanwhile, Azam did get the milestone in the second T20I but he really didn’t have a match to remember. He scored just one runs off five deliveries before falling prey to left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman. However, his failure didn’t hurt the Men in Green much as Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman helped Pakistan chase 109/2 in 18.1 overs, winning the contest by eight wickets.

Speaking of the top-five leading run-scorers for Pakistan in the format, Shoaib Malik is holding the third place with 2423 rus. Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad are fourth and fifth in the list with 1690 and 1471 runs.

Pakistan’s top-five leading run-scorers in T20Is: