Pakistan captain Babar Azam scored a magnificent century against New Zealand in the opening Test match at National Stadium, Karachi. The Pakistan skipper once again rescued his team from a tricky stage as they lost their top three batters for just 48. He shared a mammoth 196-run partnership for the fifth wicket with returning Sarfaraz Ahmed to revive the innings as Pakistan finish 317-5 at stumps on Day 1.
With his unbeaten 161-run knock, Babar breached the 50-mark in terms of Test average. With a 50.43 average, Babar has pipped Virat Kohli whose current batting average in Test cricket is 48.90. The Indian batting maestro has been going through a lean patch in red-ball cricket as his last Test century came way back in 2019. However, he has still managed to maintain a good average in the format.
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Interestingly, Babar took fewer matches than Kohli to cross the 50 average in Test cricket as the ongoing match against New Zealand is his 46th. While Kohli took 52 matches to average 50 in Test cricket.
However, Kohli had scored 12 Test centuries after 46 Tests while Babar has hit 9 including one on Monday against New Zealand. The other key factor which is needed to be considered is the number of centuries two players scored outside Asia. Kohli had slammed 8 centuries – 5 in Australia and one each in South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies after 46 Tests, while at the same time Babar has managed to hit just a century outside sub-continent conditions in his Test career so far.
The Pakistan skipper is definitely amongst the best batters in recent times but he still needs to score big runs outside Asia which Kohli has been doing over the years in his illustrious career.
Meanwhile, Babar broke a couple of records with his sensational knock on Monday as now he holds the record for the most runs in a calendar year by a Pakistan batter, going past Mohammad Yousuf’s aggregate of 2435 runs in 2006. Batting on 54 not out at the end of the first session, Babar has 2477 runs across all formats in 2022.
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After breaching the 50-run mark he also becomes the batter with the most scores of 50 or more in a calendar year. This was Babar’s 25th 50+ score, surpassing Ricky Ponting’s record of 24 in 2005.
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