Babar Azam has crossed the 10,000-run barrier in T20 cricket, and is both the youngest and fastest to the milestone in the format’s history. He could yet break almost every batting record in T20 cricket.

It was a typical Babar knock that got him to five figures. After a top-order slide, his calm and steady 51-ball 72 helped his side put up 154, and while that wasn’t quite enough in the face of a Kieron Pollard onslaught, without him, surely Peshawar Zalmi would have been beaten long before.

The knock continues an excellent run of recent form for Babar, whose last six scores across the Bangladesh Premier League and Pakistan Super League read: 62, 37, 47, 47, 68 and 72. But really you could stretch that run of form back for years, with consistency the Babar buzzword. He averages 43.95 in T20 cricket, the highest of any batter in history with a cut-off of 5,000 runs. Long-time Pakistan opening partner Mohammad Rizwan is in second place.

5️⃣0️⃣ up for skipper @babarazam258 with a maximum ⚡️#Zalmi #PZvKK #ZalmiYama #YellowStorm #HBLPSL9 #KhyberEdition #ZalmiXGTR #PZvQG #BabarAzam pic.twitter.com/ykVRyWM1xq

— Peshawar Zalmi (@PeshawarZalmi) February 21, 2024

That consistency, allied to the amount of T20 cricket Babar has played (seventh on the list of most appearances before turning 30), has already put him high up on several notable lists. He is 12th on the list of most runs in T20 cricket, overtaking David Miller during his innings today, with Chris Gayle top with 14,562 runs. He is fourth on the list of most 50-plus scores, with 94, behind Virat Kohli, David Warner, and Gayle again, the West Indian top with 110.

You would expect Babar to break both these records. He has hit between 900 and 1,800 runs in each of the last seven calendar years. Even ticking along at the lower end of that scale, he will catch Gayle by the time he turns 35. He has hit between eight and 20 fifty-plus scores in each of those years as well, meaning he could haul in the Universe Boss in 24 months, or even sooner, with almost a full season of the PSL and a T20 World Cup in the next few months. However, Warner, who currently has 109 T20 fifty-plus scores, is also likely to overtake Gayle by then.

Whether Babar breaks the record for most hundreds is harder to predict, partly because of how infrequent these are even for the best batters. While Babar is currently in second place for three-figure scores, with 10, he is still less than half-way to Gayle’s 22-ton tally. On average, Babar has ticked along at two hundreds per year in the past five years. He would need to carry on at that speed for six years to match the Jamaican, which is not impossible, but a few fallow stretches might see him end just short.

One record Babar is unlikely to break is most sixes. He has cleared the ropes 186 times in his T20 career thus far, putting him outside the top 100. Gayle, with 1,056 sixes, is top.

Strangely, Gayle’s sixes tally exactly matches Babar’s fours count. Babar sits eighth on the list for most bouncing boundaries in T20 cricket, with Alex Hales top with 1,350 fours. Babar has hit at least 100 fours in each of the last five years. Again, it’s a record he’d expect to topple.

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