Babar Azam becomes 11th Pakistan cricketer to complete 11,000 runs in international cricket

Pakistan registered a hard-fought seven-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the sixth match of the New Zealand T20I tri-series at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch on Thursday, October 13. Meanwhile,  skipper Babar Azam has managed to achieve yet another individual excellence after his match-winning half-century in the contest. 

Babar has now amassed 11,000 runs in international cricket and has become the 11th Pakistani batter to do so. He has now joined the elite club that features some of the renowned names in Pakistan cricket including the likes of Javed Miandad, Saeed Anwar, Saleem Malik, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Mishbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan, and, Inzamam-ul-Haq. 

Babar Azam achieves yet another feat

Babar Azam needed only 53 runs to achieve this milestone and he got there in style scoring 55 runs off 40 deliveries at a strike rate of 137.5 including nine fours. More importantly, he also helped the Men in Green in laying a solid foundation as he and Mohammad Rizwan were involved in a 101-run opening stand chasing 174. Another thing that stood out in his knock was that Babar scored his half-century off just 37 deliveries.

The Pakistan limited-overs batting megastar would now be eyeing yet another impactful knock in the final against the hosts New Zealand on Friday, October 14.

Coming back to the contest, Bangladesh were reduced to 41/2 inside the Powerplay before Litton Das (69) and Shakib Al Hasan (68) resurrected the innings with a vital 88-run stand for the third wicket. Nonetheless, once the duo was dismissed the Bangladesh Tigers completely lost the plot and with great difficulty crawled their way to 173/6. 

The Pakistanis in their run chase suffered an immediate setback after Babar Azam was dismissed as Haider Ali walked back without troubling the scorers. A well-set Rizwan (69) and Mohammad Nawaz (45) then successfully anchored the chase. Even though Pakistan lost the key wicket of Rizwan in the penultimate over, Nawaz and Asif Ali got the job done with one ball to spare.