In the first match of the ongoing series against Sri Lanka, Zadran scored a match-winning 98, taking his team to a position of safety in a stiff run-chase of 269. That was his ninth ODI innings, and his first fifty. Before that, he had three centuries in his first eight games.

Having made his ODI debut for Afghanistan as a seventeen-year-old in 2019, Zadran has played all of ten matches at the time of writing. Yet, in such a short span of time, he has scored more ODI centuries than Misbah-ul-Haq, Sunil Gavaskar, and Glenn Maxwell, and the same number of ODI centuries as Steve Waugh, Ben Stokes, and Michael Hussey.

To say that Zadran has had a phenomenal start to his ODI career would be an understatement. His aggregate of 585 runs from his first 10 ODIs is the fifth-highest for any batter in their first ten one-day internationals in ODI cricket history, and needless to say, highest among Afghanistan players.

If you restrict the above stat to just openers, then Zadran jumps up to number three, with Imam-ul-Haq and Janneman Malan being the only two openers to have scored more runs than Zadran in their first ten ODIs.

Zadran didn't get off to the best of starts though, which is surprising given his current numbers. He made two off nine balls on his ODI debut against West Indies in Lucknow.

His second ODI came more than two years after his first, and his third came more than three months after his second. He didn't cross 20 once in those three games.

The fastest to 1000 runs in ODIs is Pakistan's Fakhar Zaman, who reached the landmark in his 18th innings. To break that world record, Zadran needs to score another 415 runs in his next seven ODI innings. In the form that he is in, it doesn't seem completely impossible.

However, all ten ODIs that Zadran has played so far have been against either West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, or Sri Lanka. Tougher challenges lie ahead of him later this year as Afghanistan are slated to play an ODI series against India, followed by the Asia Cup (potentially), and the World Cup.

With three ODI centuries to his name already, Zadran has the joint third-most ODI centuries among Afghanistan batters along with Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Only Rahmat Shah (five) and Mohammad Shahzad (six) have more.

If Zadran can keep up this dream run, or even a fraction of it, for the next few months, he might break several more long-standing records, and by the time he reaches 22 years of age (December 2023), he might as well become an Afghan legend, with a long and fruitful career ahead of him.