Pakistan skipper Babar Azam is currently featuring in the Lanka Premier League (LPL) and notched up his 10th T20 century while playing for Colombo Strikers in the tournament. On Monday (August 7), the Strikers locked horns against Galle Titans in the 10th match of the season and Babar stepped up opening the innings. He thumped 104 runs off 59 balls with eight fours and five sixes to his name in the 189-run chase.
It was a sublime knock from the Pakistan captain as he stunned the crowd in Pallekele with his strokeplay. This also turned out to be his 10th century in T20 cricket and became only the second batter in the history of the format to do so after Chris Gayle who has a massive 22 tons. Babar Azam is at the second position in this aspect with the likes of Virat Kohli, Aaron Finch, David Warner and Aaron Finch next with 8 centuries each.
As far as his T20 career is concerned, Babar Azam has now scored 9412 runs in 254 innings (264 T20s) at a strike-rate of around 129 with a stunning 10 tons and 77 half-centuries to his name. With this win, Colombo Strikers climbed at the third position and interestingly, the tournament is nicely set up now with two wins after four matches for each of the five teams. In both of Strikers' wins, Babar Azam won the Man of the match award. This was also the first time the Strikers were chasing this season and thanks to Babar's stunning century, they got over the line in the last-over thriller.
However, when Babar got out in the final over, things looked extremely tough for the Strikers as they needed 14 runs off the last five balls. But Mohammad Nawaz kept his cool to hit vital boundaries when the team needed 10 runs off last three balls and took them home in fine fashion.
Here are some of the reactions to Babar's century: