Babar Azam equals Matthew Hayden and Virat Kohli’s record in a T20 World Cup

Pakistan captain Babar Azam on Sunday equalled the T20 World Cup record for the most half-centuries in a single edition after scoring his fourth fifty in the ongoing edition in the UAE.

He took 40 balls to reach his fifty to equal Matthew Hayden and Virat Kohli’s T20 World Cup record. Hayden, who is Pakistan’s batting coach in this tournament, was the first batter to accumulate 4 fifties in the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup in 2007. Virat Kohli hit four fifties in 2014 in Sri Lanka.

Both Hayden and Kohli finished as the top scorers with 265 and 319 runs, respectively, from 6 games each. Babar is the leading run-scorer with 264 runs in World Cup 2021.

Babar (25) has the third-most 50s in T20Is behind Kohli (29) and Rohit Sharma (27). His four fifty-plus scores have come against India (68*), Afghanistan (51), Namibia (70) and Scotland (66).

However, Babar leads the list of skippers with 50-plus scores in T20 internationals. He has hit 15 fifties while Kohli has 13 fifties as India’s captain.