Pakistan skipper Babar Azam shone with the bat in the second T20I against New Zealand at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. He scored a brilliant century, his 3rd in T20Is, to help the hosts post 192 runs on the board in their 20 overs. In reply, New Zealand could only reach 154 runs in their 20 overs to go down by 38 runs in the game and 0-2 down in the series. Haris Rauf was also the star bowler for Pakistan picking up his second consecutive four-fer and returned with the figures of 4/27.
Here are some of the records Babar Azam created/broke:
Babar Azam scored his third century in T20 Internationals. Only Rohit Sharma has more T20I tons (4) than him in the shortest format of the sport.
Babar Azam smashed his third T20I ton as captain. These are most for any player while leading a team in T20Is. He went past Rohit Sharma who has two centuries as T20I captain of India.
This was Babar Azam's 9th ton in T20 cricket overall. With this ton, he went past the likes of Michael Klinger, Aaron Finch and David Warner who all have 8 tons in T20 cricket. Only Chris Gayle is ahead of Babar in this aspect with a whopping 22 centuries in the shortest format.
Babar Azam has now won 42 matches as Pakistan's T20I captain. These are the joint-most wins in the shortest format alongside Eoin Morgan and Asghar Afghan.
Speaking after the match, Babar Azam seemed happy with his show in the game and more importantly his team winning. "I am very happy with my performance in this match. There was a bit of help for the fast bowlers early on but Rizwan and myself saw that period through, built a partnership and then Iftikhar and myself finished it off. We utilized the last five overs and got to a very good total.
"Losing wickets back to back is a concern and we will discuss these things, it does put pressure on the batters when you lose wickets in clusters. We have very good fast bowlers and they performed brilliantly. He (Rizwan) is feeling better and there's a rest day tomorrow, let's see how he pulls up," he said.
