Babar Azam-led Pakistan suffered a crushing defeat in the recently concluded second T20I against England in Birmingham. The hosts thrashed the visitors by 23 runs to take the lead in the four-match series.
When asked to bat first, England scored 183 for 7 in the allotted 20 overs. Their captain Jos Buttler led from the front and scored the top goal for them. The right-handed batsman, who recently scored two centuries in IPL 2024, scored 84 runs off 51 balls with the help of eight fours and three sixes. Apart from him, no other England batsman could reach the 40-run mark.
In response, Pakistan were bowled out for 160 in the 20th over. Openers Mohammad Rizwan (0) and Saim Ayub (2) failed to give the team a good start before Babar Azam (32) and Fakhar Zaman (45) steadied the ship. However, once the partnership was broken, Pakistan’s innings went completely off the rails. They kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were finally bowled out for 160.
“It was an even score, our players bowled very well. In batting, there were moments, but we didn’t finish well. A small partnership between Fakhar and me and later, there was no big partnership. If someone got 40s and 50s, they could have been different”, Babar said after the match.
Babar Azam surpasses Rohit Sharma:
While Babar Azam could not take his team home, he scored enough runs to overtake India captain Rohit Sharma in the list of leading run-scorers in T20Is. The right-handed batsman is now only behind Indian superstar Virat Kohli in the list.
Kohli is currently at the top of the list with 4037 runs while Babar scored 3987 runs. Rohit is third with 3974 runs. Babar now needs just 13 runs to become the first Pakistani player to reach the 4000 run mark in T20Is. He also needs just 51 runs to surpass Kohli. With two more matches left in the series, Babar would look to break Kohli’s record and enter the T20 World Cup as the leading run-scorer in T20Is.
He can also become the first captain to score 2500 runs in the shortest format of the game. The Pakistan captain needs just 16 runs to achieve the feat. He is currently the leading run-scorer as captain in T20Is.