Babar Azam Creates History, Becomes 2nd Asian Cricketer To...

Pakistan’s Babar Azam on Friday (September 11) became the fourth cricketer and only the second Asian to score 2,000 runs in the World Test Championship as a captain, doing so in the third innings of the third Test against England at Edgbaston. He joined England’s Joe Root, who is also playing in the Test, and Ben Stokes and Sri Lanka’s Dimuth Karunaratne on the elite list.

Babar took only 41 innings to get there, the third-fastest, with Root and Karunaratne tied at the top with 40. Stokes, who played as an all-rounder until his retirement earlier this year, took 61 knocks to get there.

Most runs as a captain in WTC:

Player	Country	Innings	Runs	Highest Score	Batting Average	Centuries	Fifties
Joe Root	England	66	3060	228	48.57	8	32
Ben Stokes	England	71	2182	155	32.56	3	32
Dimuth Karunaratne	Sri Lanka	45	2160	244	49.09	6	22
Babar Azam	Pakistan	41	2015	196	53.02	4	24
Kraigg Brathwaite	West Indies	64	1994	160	32.68	3	24
Virat Kohli	India	37	1349	254*	38.54	2	16
Tom Latham	New Zealand	37	1338	252	36.16	5	9
Rohit Sharma	India	42	1254	131	30.58	4	15
Dhananjaya de Silva	Sri Lanka	31	1130	120	37.66	3	15
Najmul Hossain Shanto	Bangladesh	30	1130	148	38.96	4	12

Babar got out for 76 (103), taking his tally in the list to 2015 runs. This was his first half-century of the three-Test series (where he missed the first Test due

to an injury) and was laced with 11 boundaries and a six against Jofra Archer.

He came to bat at 125/3 in the 31st over, when Shan Masood and Azan Awais had seen off the tricky new ball phase. He got some easy deliveries from the English pacers and collected multiple early boundaries to get into his groove.

The pacers, especially Archer, increasingly troubled him with late movement from the older ball. A change of strategy then completely unsettled him — England went short relentlessly with a packed field behind the wicket.

He got caught at deep third off Archer, but the fielder, Theo Wylie, stepped on the cushion while taking the catch, making it Babar’s first six of the innings. Several more bouncers troubled him before Josh Tongue got him caught fine, courtsey of an excellent catch from Jordon Cox.