KARACHI: Babar Azam, Pakistan’s cricket captain, ruffled a few feathers in his hat on Tuesday with a colourful 158-run innings in the third One-Day International against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham.
In his 139-ball innings, Babar blasted four drives over the fence for maximums and stroked 14 boundaries, giving him his 14th ODI century – in his 81st innings – and making him the quickest to reach the milestone of 14 ODI centuries.
Hashim Amla of South Africa scored 14 ODI centuries in 84 innings, whereas David Warner of Australia needed 98 innings to get there. Virat Kohli of India needed 103 innings to attain this milestone.
Babar scored his third ODI century on English soil, making him the first Pakistani to do so. Saeed Anwar, Fakhar Zaman, and Imam ul Haq all had two ODI centuries to their names. Babar had previously made history as the first Pakistani to reach 1000 runs in England.
On many levels, the individual score of 158 was equally important.
The total surpassed Shoaib Malik’s 125* against India in Karachi in 2008 as the best by a Pakistani skipper in an ODI. This was also the greatest score by any Pakistani player on English soil, surpassing Imam ul Haq’s previous mark of 151 in an individual inning.
Babar’s 158 is also the highest individual score by a skipper in any bilateral ODI series played on English soil, surpassing Andrew Strauss’ 154 against Bangladesh in 2010. Before Babar Azam, only two leaders had scored more runs in an innings in England: Kapil Dev (175) in 1983 and GM Turner (171) in 1975, both during World Cup games.
Babar and Rizwan scored 179 runs for the third wicket partnership during the innings. For any surface and at any venue, this was Pakistan’s greatest ODI partnership against England.
