Babar looked in sublime touch on Saturday in Lahore in the second match of the series as he smashed a blistering century to power the hosts to 192 for four.
Babar Azam failed to make it count in his record 100th appearance in T20Is in the opening match of the series against New Zealand, making just nine runs. But the Pakistan skipper looked in sublime touch on Saturday at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore in the second match of the series as he smashed a blistering century to power the hosts to 192 for four. And with that knock, Babar smashed Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s staggering numbers in T20 cricket.
Pakistan had a very productive powerplay where Babar allowed Mohammad Rizwan to flourish with his 20-ball 32 while he managed 26 off 16. After the half-way mark in the innings, Pakistan were reduced to 4 down in a space of just 13 balls where Matt Henry had struck twice in consecutive balls.
Babar reached his fifty shortly after and then quickly changed his gears to deal with boundaries. He was ably assisted by Iftikhar Ahmed in his 19-ball 33 as the two stitched an 87-run stand en route to which Babar reached his third T20I hundred which came in the final ball of the innings which a smashing boundary over cover.
With the ton, all of which came during his leadership tenure for the T20I team of Pakistan, Babar scripted a new T20I world record going past India skipper Rohit Sharma for the most hundreds in the format as a captain. Overall, he stands joint second alongside Glenn Maxwell, Colin Munro and Suryakumar Yadav for most T20I tons with Rohit leading the chart with four such knocks.
It was also his ninth century in T20 cricket, which only places him behind West Indies legend Chris Gayle. Six of those came during his captaincy tenure in the format, which is the second best in the format after Australia’s Michael Klinger (7). Babar now stands ahead of Kohli and Faf du Plessis, both of whom have five such scores to their name.
Babar’s knock, along with Haris Rauf’s economical four-wicket haul helped Pakistan win by 38 runs in the second T20I match in Lahore.