Ace Pakistan batter and captain Babar Azam achieved another milestone on Monday as he became the only sixth Pakistani to amass 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year.
Babar achieved the feat in the ongoing Test series against England. He reached the milestone on the third day of the ongoing Karachi Test when he reached 45 in his innings.
Babar, however, was later dismissed at his individual score of 54.
While this was the seventh occasion of a Pakistani batter scoring 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year, Babar is the sixth cricketer from the country to do so as Younis Khan achieved this feat twice.
Notably, former Pakistan captain Younis had amassed 1,179 runs in 2006 and another 1,064 runs in 2014. On the other hand, Mohammad Yousuf leads the chart with 1,788 runs in the year 2006.
Other Pakistan batters in the list are Azhar Ali (1,198 in 2016), Inzamam-ul-Haq (1,090 in 2000) and Mohsin Khan (1,029 in 1982).
Overall, just three other batters have managed to score 1,000 runs this year before the current Pakistan skipper. England’s Joe Root has amassed 1,098 runs in 27 innings, Australia’s Usman Khawaja 1,079 runs in 19 innings and England’s Jonny Bairstow with 1,061 runs in 19 innings.
After 1,009 runs from 15 innings this year, Babar has two more innings left in the ongoing year as Pakistan is scheduled to play a Test match against New Zealand between December 26 to 30 in Karachi and is still in contention to finish the year 2022 as the leading Test runs scorer.