This year has been an absolute dream come true for Pakistan wicket-keeper batsman, Mohammad Rizwan. Until early last year, not many knew about him and his abilities and all it took was a few good innings and consistency for him to become one of the best players in T20 cricket this year. Mind you, Sarfraz Ahmed was the first-choice keeper until last year.
Rizwan was given the opportunity to captain the national side last year and things changed for him since then. His averages sky-rocketed across formats, especially in the T20 format. He had a brilliant year, including a great 2021 T20 World Cup where he was loved even more for his innings against India where he was flawless and then his innings in the semi final against Australia.
A night before the semi, Rizwan was in ICU and had no chance of playing the semi final but he played and scored well too, getting more respect and admiration from cricket fans from around the world. Before today’s 3rd T20I against West Indies in Karachi, he was already the highest run scorer in T20s and T20Is in the calendar year, 2021. And then, he went on to sweeten the deal for himself.
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He already scored 78 and 38 in the first two T20Is and then he needed 51 runs in the 3rd T20I to cross another magical landmark, one which had never been scaled in the past. We’re talking about hitting 2,000 T20 runs in a calendar year which makes him the first to do so in T20 history. He is ahead of Babar Azam’s record of 17,00+ runs in the same year, while passing past records too.
Before these two broke records for themselves, it was Chris Gayle who has 1,665 runs in 2015 and Virat Kohli who scored 1,614 runs in 2016 (the year he got 900+ runs in an IPL season). These are huge names in T20 cricket and passing them is a milestone he won’t ever forget. At the time of writing this, he was batting on 64* as Pakistan aimed to chase down 200+ to beat West Indies and clean sweep the series 3-0.
Apart from this record, he also went past Virat Kohli to have the highest batting average in T20I cricket, going above 52. Additionally, he and Babar Azam went on to become the first pair in T20 internationals to share 6 century partnerships in this format of the game. Legends, these two!
For similar updates from cricketers breaking records around the world, stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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