Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq march into the record books

Zaman finished on 515 runs from five matches at an average of 257.50 and broke the previous record held by Salman Butt, who had scored 451 runs in a five-match series against Bangladesh in 2007-08.

In doing so, Zaman also became the first Pakistani batsman to score 500 runs in a five-match ODI series.

Most runs for Pakistan in a bilateral ODI series

Zaman finished the series scoring the second-most number of runs in a bilateral series in all ODI history, going ahead of Rohit Sharma’s mark of 491 runs against Australia in 2013. Zaman is only behind India’s Virat Kohli, who tops the list with 558 runs from six matches against South Africa earlier this year.

This means that no batsman has made as many runs as him in a five-match series.

Most runs in a bilateral ODI series

It was a series to remember for the Pakistan opening batsman. He scored at least a half-century in four out of the five ODIs, including a career-best 210* in the fourth match, which was also the first ODI double-century by a Pakistani batsman, as well as an unbeaten 117 in the second ODI.

In the last match, he also became the quickest batsman to get to 1000 ODI runs.

Joining Zaman in his exploits has been the young Imam-ul-Haq, who made three centuries in the series. That took Haq’s tally to a remarkable four hundreds in nine matches. He has converted all his fifty-plus scores into centuries so far!

The duo have added 705 runs in this series, with four 100-plus stands. No other pair in history has accomplished this. The record for most runs in partnership was previously held by Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed, who added 590 in five matches for Pakistan against New Zealand in 2003-04.

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