Pakistan’s ace batter Babar Azam is on the verge of a major World Test Championship (WTC) milestone during the two-match home Test series against Bangladesh, scheduled to commence on August 21.
Babar, one of the most consistent batters across formats in the world currently, is just 339 runs away from joining an elusive list of batters, having breached the 3000-run barrier in WTC history.
The right-handed batter has thus far scored 2,661 runs in WTC, the most by a Pakistani batter. He, however, could become the fifth batter to score 3000 runs in the WTC history to amass the milestone.
England’s Joe Root leads the way with 4,598 WTC runs, followed by Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne with 3,904.
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The four batters, who have breached the 3000-run barrier are either from Australia or England as the two cricketing nations play the most number of Tests.
Meanwhile, if Babar Azam manages to score 339 runs in the two-match series against Bangladesh, he will become the first Asian batter to amass 3000 WTC runs as he is ahead of India’s senior batting duo of Rohit Sharma (2,552) and Virat Kohli (2,235).
The Test series will commence in Rawalpindi, with the first Test scheduled to begin on 21 August. Following that, the action will shift to the National Bank Stadium in Karachi, where the second Test match will be held from 30 August to 3 September.
Pakistan squad for first Test against Bangladesh: Shan Masood (c), Saud Shakeel, Aamir Jamal (subject to fitness), Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Shaheen Shah Afridi.
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