With his sixth half-century this season, Pakistan’s talismanic batsman, Babar Azam, has been the quickest player to achieve the milestone of 9000 Twenty20 runs. Azam has continued his stellar performance in the nation’s domestic T20 league.
Babar Azam past Gayle T20 record
Babar broke Chris Gayle’s previous record of 249 games on Thursday while playing in his 245th game for Peshawar Zalmi, who produced an incredible comeback to defeat Islamabad United by 12 runs and advance to the Pakistan Super League playoffs.
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The 28-year-old succeeds Shoaib Malik, who has accumulated 12,528 runs across 510 matches, the second-most of any player, as the 16th player to achieve the milestone. Gayle continues to easily lead the format in runs scored with 14,562 runs in 463 games over the course of his distinguished career.
On Friday, Peshawar will play the Lahore Qalandars, the reigning champions, in the second elimination game. The victor advances to the rescheduled final against the Multan Sultans on Saturday.
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At 1-128 after 14 overs, Islamabad was dominating the chase thanks to a century partnership between Sohaib Maqsood (60) and Alex Hales (57), but Peshawar’s underrated pacemen Salman Irshad (2-18) and Aamer Jamal (2-36) completely changed the course of the match.
In a response to Peshawar’s 8-183, they limited Islamabad to 6-171. Prior to Shadab Khan’s dismissal in the 13th over, Babar had scored 64 in only 39 balls, but Peshawar lost five wickets for 46 in their last seven overs after he was out.
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