Pakistan captain Babar Azam crossed a major milestone in his international career in the ongoing Test match against Sri Lanka, as he scored his 10,000th run in international cricket, furthering his claim as one of the best all-format batters in world cricket. Now the captain of Pakistan in all formats of the game, Babar has been a consistent run-scoring machine in red and white ball cricket both, and broke Pakistan’s record for the fastest player to reach that landmark in their cricketing history.
Babar accomplished the feat in 228 innings, beating the previous record held by Javed Miandad by a significant 20 innings. Currently the number one ranked batsman in both T20 and ODI cricket, Babar has shown his ability to rack up the runs ever since his inclusion in the team in 2015, truly breaking out as one of the finest players in the game in the last few years.
While he sits comfortably at the top of the list for Pakistani batters, he also comes in at fifth for all batters all time, behind only Sir Vivian Richards (206), Hashim Amla (217), Brian Lara (220), and Joe Root (222), and ahead of players such as Virat Kohli and Steve Smith (both 232). Considering that the players ahead of him did not play the format of the game with the smallest chances of putting up big scores in the shape of T20I cricket, or at least only sparingly did so, it puts Babar’s accomplishment in perspective.
