Babar Azam became the first Pakistan captain in as many as 38 years to score a century in one-day international cricket in England against the home team, when he smacked 158 from 139 deliveries in the third and final ODI played at Birmingham on Tuesday.
Babar Azam’s innings included 14 boundaries and as many as 4 sixes which powered Pakistan to a strong total of 331/9 in their 50 overs, finally a batting performance that the visiting team can be proud of having gone through motions in the first two matches.
Pakistan have already lost the three-match ODI series to a second string England team after their first-choice team was forced into isolation following the outbreak of coronavirus cases in the camp in days leading to this bilateral affair.
On Tuesday, Babar Azam was also able to bring up his 14th 150 over internationals which makes him the quickest to get to that mark, for which he has taken only 81 innings. Babar Azam was thus able to break the record of South Africa’s Hashim Amla (84), Australia’s David Warner (98) and India’s Virat Kohli (103) in the race to get the quickest 14 ODI tons.
While he finished at a strong total of 158, Baba Raghav still missed going past the 4000-run mark in ODI cricket. In 82 matches so far, the right-hand Pakistan batsman has scored 3,827 runs at an average of 55.46 with the help of 14th centuries and 17 half-centuries.
After the conclusion of this ongoing three-match ODI series, England and Pakistan will head into a three-match T20I series to be played on July 16, 18 and 20 at Nottingham, Leeds and Manchester, respectively.