PAK vs ENG: Babar Azam achieves another milestone
He achieved the feat in the third Test against England
KARACHI: Babar Azam on Monday became only sixth Pakistani to amass 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year.
Babar reached this milestone on the third day of Karachi Test against England, when he reached 45 in his innings.
Babar, though, was dismissed by debutant Rehan Ahmed after scoring 54.
While this was the seventh occasion of a Pakistani batter scoring 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year, Babar is the sixth cricketer from the country to do so as Younis Khan achieved this feat twice.
The former captain, Younis, had scored 1,179 runs in 2006 and another 1,064 runs in 2014. Mohammad Yousuf leads the cart with 1,788 runs in the year 2006. Other batters in list from Pakistan include Azhar Ali (1,198 in 2016), Inzamam ul Haq (1,090 in 2000) and Mohsin Khan (1,029 in 1982).
Only three other batters have amassed 1000 runs in this year before Babar Azam. Joe Root has scored 1,098 runs in 27 innings, Usman Khawaja 1,079 runs in 19 innings and Jonny Bairstow with 1,061 runs in 19 innings.
Babar, who currently has 1009 runs from 15 innings, has two more innings left in this year as Pakistan is scheduled to play a Test match against New Zealand between 26th to 30th December in Karachi. He is still in contention to finish the year 2022 as leading Test run-scorer.
It must be noted that England took full advantage of winning the toss — and their batting depth — to win the first Test by 74 runs on a dead wicket that offered nothing to the bowlers.
Rawalpindi yielded 1,768 runs in four innings — the third most in Test history — with seven individual centuries and five fifties.
The Ben Stokes-led unit won the second Test in Multan by 26 runs after Pakistan failed to chase down a target of 355 runs.
England are on their first Test tour of Pakistan since 2005, having declined to visit in the interim years on security grounds.
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