.jpg "ith the Lahore 100, Babar Azam approaches the top Indian player.") |
In his 101st T20I, Babar Azam scored a superb century, giving Pakistan a 2-0 lead over New Zealand in their five-match home series.
With Mohammad Rizwan, the Pakistani captain shared a 99-run opening partnership. The hat-trick player in the previous match was Matt Henry, who sent back wicket keeper Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman in 2 consecutive balls in the 11th over of the innings to damage Pakistan.
Babar kept his feet on the wicket and completed his half-century in 36 balls. Babar then played aggressively and scored 51 runs off the next 22 balls, including a brilliant 36 runs in the last three overs.
Babar needed 16 runs in the last over to score a century. He completed his century by hitting James Neesham for two fours and a six.
Babar Azam's unbeaten innings of 101 took Pakistan to 192/4 in their 20 overs and the host team restricted the opposition to 154/7 with their brilliant bowling attack. After losing 4 wickets in a row, Babar Azam and Iftikhar Ahmed (33 not out off 19 balls) formed an unbeaten partnership of 87 runs for the fifth wicket.
In this match, Babar scored the third century of his career by scoring a century in 58 balls. Notably, he is the only Pakistani batsman to have scored more than one century in the T20 format. Babar's hundred places him quite near the top of the list of batsmen with the most T20I tonnes.
Top of the list with four T20I hundreds is Rohit Sharma, followed by five other batsmen, including Babar, who has three hundreds presently. Babar and Rohit both have 33 T20I scores of fifty or above, which puts them second only to Virat Kohli's 38 such marks.
players with the most hundreds in T20I
Number
Player
Country
T20I Hundreds
T20I Fifties
1
Rohit Sharma
India
4
29
2
Babar Azam
Pakistan
3
30
3
Sabawoon Davizi
Czech Republic
3
5
4
Glenn Maxwell
Australia
3
10
5
Colin Munroo
New Zealand
3
11