The captain of the Pakistan cricket team, Babar Azam, completed 1,000 runs in the ICC World Cups for Pakistan (T20I and ODI) during this year's mega event match against Afghanistan at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, India, on Monday.
Babar is playing fifth ICC tournament (ICC Champions Trophy 2017, 2019 World Cup, T20 World Cup 2021, T20 World Cup 2022 and 2023 World Cup) and became just the second Pakistani player after the legendary Javed Miandad to do so.
Miandad, the winner of the 1992 World Cup, did it in 28 innings while Azam reached this feat in his 26th innings.
It is worth mentioning Azam scored 474 runs in eight innings in the 2019 World Cup, which is the most by any Pakistani batter in the history of the mega event.
Pakistan is currently playing Afghanistan in the 22nd match of the ICC World Cup 2023 and the Green Shirts are aiming to put a competitive total on the scoreboard as there is no room for error.
By the time this story was filed, Pakistan was batting at 167-4 in 35 overs with Babar Azam (49*) and Shadab Khan (2*) on the crease.
Earlier, Pakistan captain Babar Azam won the toss and opted to bat first in the Cricket World Cup match against Afghanistan in Chennai.
Pakistan have two wins and as many defeats from four games.
Afghanistan, who have just one win from four matches, named left-arm spinner Noor Ahmad in place of fast bowler Fazalhaq Farooqi.
The two sides met each other seven times in ODIs with Pakistan emerging winners in all the matches. Pakistan and Afghanistan faced one another in the 2019 World Cup where Imad Wasim guided his side to a famous victory.
Teams:
Pakistan: Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam (capt), Mohammad Rizwan (wkt), Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Usama Mir, Shahen Shah Afridi, Hasan Ali, Haris Rauf
Afghanistan: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (capt), Azmatullah Omarzai, Ikram Alikhil (wkt), Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Noor Ahmad
- Babar Azam