Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam played a brilliant knock of 75 runs in 42 balls against Ireland in the third T20 International in the city of Dublin and this fifty meant that the 29 year old brought up his 39th Fifty plus score in T20 Internationals.
Having scored fifty plus runs 39 times, Babar now holds the record of the most 50+ scores in T20i Cricket (36 half centuries + three centuries).
Batters with the highest number of 50+ scores in T20 Internationals (Including hundreds):
Babar Azam – 39
Virat Kohli – 38
Rohit Sharma – 34
Mohammad Rizwan – 29
The Shaheens defeated Ireland by six wickets in the third game at Dublin’s Clontarf Cricket Club Stadium and this win helped them to win the three match T20i series by a margin of 2-1.
After facing a humiliating defeat in the first match by five wickets, Pakistan made a strong comeback in the series as they won the remaining two T20i’s in a dominating fashion.
Chasing a total of 179 runs in the third and the final T20i, the Shaheens once again got off to a poor start as opener Saim Ayung got dismissed with a score of just 14 runs.
However, the duo of skipper Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan ensured that the Shaheens stayed in the game as they stitched a partnership of 139 runs for the second wicket which not only helped the visitors seal the series but they also wrote their names in the record books. The duo of Rizwan and Babar became the first batting pair to score 3000 partnership – runs. While doing so, the duo also became the first batting – pair to get involved in 10 century partnerships in the shortest format of the game. India’s duo of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma are second on the list with five century stands.
Following the dismissals of Babar Azam (75 runs in 42 balls) and Mohammad Rizwan (56 runs in 38 balls), Wicketkeeper batsman Azam Khan (18 runs in 6 balls) took matters into his own hands and helped the Shaheens get over the line as the 2022 T20 World Cup runners up chased down the target of 179 runs in 17 overs.
Earlier in the first inning, the Babar Azam led team restricted Ireland to a decent score of 178-7 in 20 overs after the hosts got off to a really strong start in their batting inning.
Left arm fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi won the player of the match award for his outstanding spell of 3-14 in four overs.