Babar Azam Becomes Fastest Pakistan Batsman To Score 1000 ODI Runs In Calendar Year

While Miandad took 21 innings to amass 1000-ODI runs in 1987, Azam achieved the same landmark in just 19 innings.

Pakistan's batting mainstay Babar Azam on Monday became the first cricketer from his nation to scale the 1000-ODI run milestone in 2019. The right-handed batsman top scored for Pakistan with a stellar 11th ODI hundred in the 2nd One Day International  against Sri Lanka in Karachi. On course of reaching his ton, Azam eclipsed the record held by former captain Javed Miandad and became the fastest Pakistan batsman to cross 1,000 runs in a calendar year. While Miandad took 21 innings to amass 1000-ODI runs in 1987, Azam achieved the same in just 19 innings. Former middle-order batsman Mohammed Yousuf and former batsman and current coach Misbah-ul-Haq share the third spot in the list, having taken 23 innings to reach the feat. Besides Azam, Virat Kohli (1,288), Rohit Sharma (1,232), Aaron Finch (1,141) and Usman Khawaja (1,085) are the other batsman to have notched up 1,000 runs in ODIs in 2019.

Pakistan skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed won the toss and elected to bat in the second day-night match against Sri Lanka in Karachi on Monday. The city has not hosted a one-day international since 2009 when Sri Lanka played two back-to-back matches at the National Stadium. The series opener between the two teams got washed out due to incessant rain.