Babar Azam breaks the records of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma with T20I ton against New Zealand

Pakistan captain Babar Azam broke a pair of impressive records during his 58-ball unbeaten record in the second T20I against New Zealand at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Saturday 15 April.

Pakistan won the toss and opted to bat first in the game against the Kiwis. Babar scored 11 fours and three sixes to guide his side to 192/4 from his 20 overs. In response, New Zealand were held to 154/7 despite Mark Chapman’s unbeaten 65 from 40 balls.

Babar hit his ton, his third in T20I, on the last ball of Pakistan’s innings off Jimmy Neesham’s four over cover. With his third hundred in T20I, the Pakistan batsman broke Rohit Sharma’s record for most hundreds in the format as captain.

Overall, he now ranks second on the list of players with the most hundreds of T20Is. Glenn Maxwell, Colin Munro and Suryakumar Yadav have three T20I tonnes, a list topped by Indian Captain Rohit (four).

In general T20 cricket, Babar now has nine centuries, six of which are coming as captain. Thus, he broke Virat Kohli’s and Faf du Plessis’ five-tonne records in T20 cricket as a leader. Australia’s Michael Klinger (seven) tops the list.

Furthermore, at nine T20 tons, Babar now trails only West Indian legend Chris Gayle (22) in the illustrious list of batsmen with the most T20 centuries. The Australian duo of David Warner and Aaron Finch have eight T20 tonnes each.

“Very happy with my performance” – Babar Azam

Speaking after being named Man of the Match, Pakistan captain Babar said he was very pleased with his efforts, commenting:

“I am very happy with my performance in this match. There was a little help for the fast bowlers early on, but (Mohammad) Rizwan and I saw that period, built a partnership and then Iftikhar and I finished it. We used the last five overs and came up with a very good total.

“Losing wickets in a row is a concern and we will discuss these things, it puts pressure on batsmen when he loses wickets in groups. We have very good fast bowlers and they performed brilliantly.”

The third T20I Pakistan-New Zealand will be played at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Monday, April 17.