Shoaib Malik becomes first Asian to hit 10,000 runs in T20 cricket

KARACHI: Pakistan’s experienced all-rounder Shoaib Malik, on Saturday, created history by becoming the first Asian cricketer to complete 10,000 runs in T20 cricket.

Malik reached the important milestone during his innings of 74 runs off 44 balls for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against Balochistan in the National T20 Cup in Rawalpindi.

The 38-year-old Pakistani is the third cricketer in history to reach this milestone after the West Indian duo of Christ Gayle and Kieron Pollard.

Gayle leads the list with 13,296 runs while Pollard has 10,370 runs to his credit.

The next Asian batsman in leading T20 run-scorers' list is India’s Virat Kohli who has 9,033 runs in the shortest format of professional cricket.

Malik played the 395th T20 match of his career on Saturday, the most by any Asian. He needs to play five more to become the fourth cricketer in the world to play 400 T20s.