During the National T20 Cup match on Sunday between Sialkot Region and Rawalpindi Region at the UBL Sports Complex in Karachi, right-handed hitter Shoaib Malik of Pakistan accomplished extraordinary achievement.
Malik, who has played in 446 international matches for his country, is the first hitter in Pakistani history to score 1000 fours in 482 innings of T20 cricket. In this manner, he made cricket history by becoming just the eighth player to reach this feat.
In the shorter variant, he also completed 400 sixes, marking him the only Pakistani to do so to date.
In the National T20 Cup, Malik is now captain of Sialkot. With 10 boundaries and 84 runs off 56 balls, he helped his team reach their aim of 164 runs.
Malik tried to get to the target in 18.4 overs with eight balls remaining, but in vain as Rawalpindi achieved the desired outcome.
It’s essential to note that Malik has already stated his desire to surpass Chris Gayle’s record for the most runs in Twenty20 cricket.
With 12,843 runs in 482 innings of T20 cricket, compared to Gayle’s 14,562 runs in 455 innings, the all-rounder needs 1719 runs to make history.
It wouldn’t be shocking if he kept playing the game in its shortest format for a few more years and surpassed Gayle‘s record, given how diligently he has worked to improve his health throughout the years.
Malik is one of the Pakistani cricket players with the longest tenure, it should be noted.
The all-rounder played in 287 one-day matches for Pakistan after making his ODI debut in 1999. In those games, he took 158 wickets and scored 7534 runs at an average of 34.55.
All-rounder Malik played in just 35 Test matches over his brief career, amassing 1898 runs at a career-best 35.14, including a career-high 245 against England in the United Arab Emirates in 2015. In the process, he collected 32 wickets.
The 41-year-old claimed 28 wickets in 49 innings while hitting 2435 runs at 31.21 with a strike rate of 125.64 in T20I cricket.
