Babar Azam has achieved one of his goals for this year as he brought up his maiden PSL century on Wednesday against Quetta Gladiators in Rawalpindi.
The Zalmi skipper achieved the milestone in 60 balls, while hitting 15 fours and three sixes.
Babar went onto score 115 runs off 65 balls, which helped his team reach a mammoth total of 240/2.
Babar also became the first batsman in PSL history to hit 15 fours in an innings. However, Jason Roy broke this record an hour later in the same match, as he smashed 20 fours in his record-breaking unbeaten 145-run innings.
In an interview with Cricket Pakistan just before PSL season 8, Azam had said that he is aiming to score his maiden PSL century and wants his new franchise team, Peshawar Zalmi, to win this year’s PSL under his leadership. He also stated that his ultimate aim is to win the 2023 World Cup in India.
“I have a lot to achieve, but my main goal is to score maiden PSL century in this year’s season and win PSL for Peshawar Zalmi. I also want to win this year’s ICC World Cup 2023 scheduled in India, and I want my country to be named the winning side,” said Babar.
Babar gave an ideal start to Zalmi after winning the toss, stitching a record partnership of 162 for Zalmi with Saim Ayub.
This was Babar’s 36th century partnership in T20s, the most by any Pakistani batsman. The next Pakistani on the list is Rizwan with 26 century stands.
Only three players have more century partnerships than Babar, who are Chris Gayle (46), David Warner (42) and and Virat Kohli (38).
Babar has also scored the most T20 centuries (8) by any batsman in the world since 2019. The next on the list is Jos Buttler with 6 centuries.
