Mohammad Rizwan has been in Bradmanesque form in T20Is in 2021, scoring more runs in a year than anyone ever has. T20I batting is only getting better, but there are still enough reasons to believe that his feats won’t be repeated in the future.
Before 2021, Mohammad Rizwan, hardly a T20 hero, had scored a combined 313 T20I runs from 26 matches, with one fifty-plus score (right at the end of 2020). 12 months later, he’s played 27 T20Is in 2021, scoring 1,239 runs at 72.88, with a century and 11 fifties to boot.
Such a prolific patch of form is unheard of in T20Is – Rizwan has now scored (by far) the most runs in a calendar year, breaching the 1,000-run mark for the first time in T20I cricket. In second place is his opening partner and skipper Babar Azam, both having crossed Paul Stirling’s tally of 748 runs from 2019. In the process, Rizwan also became the first player to hit 10+ fifties in a year, and also the first to hit 100+ fours in one calendar year. These are plainly ridiculous numbers.
Unsurprisingly, he’s also at the top of the list for most T20 runs in a calendar year, having amassed 1,911 runs so far playing for Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Multan Sultans in 2021.
It’s been an incredible run so far, and it’s unlikely that Rizwan’s tally will be surpassed in the future.
No doubt, the move to make him open the innings has paid rich dividends and unlocked the full potential of a talented stroke-maker with early fielding restrictions in place. Among all batters to feature in 15+ innings in a calendar year, Rizwan’s average of 75.06 is 27 units better than the next best.
The wicket keeper-batter has two more T20Is to go this year, and, if he plays both, will end up with 29 matches in 2021. Currently, Rizwan is tied at 27 with Babar and Bangladesh’s Afif Hossain for the most T20I appearances in a single year. Of all 34 men’s T20I cricketers to play 20+ games in a year, only two – MS Dhoni and Jasprit Bumrah – belong to a year (2016) that’s not 2021 or 2019. The 2019 batch predominantly belongs to the batch that played in the T20 World Cup Qualifier that year. The volume of T20I cricket this year has been exceptionally high.
That’s also why it’s a feat unlikely to be repeated – the combination of quality and quantity for Rizwan have worked immensely well. It’s unlikely that a player will feature in as many T20Is in the future, given how many T20 leagues run across the year, and how intensely packed the international calendars already are.
The yearly record for most appearances in a single format belongs to Rahul Dravid, who played as many as 43 ODIs in 1999 – a World Cup year – with more matches presumably in place in preparation for the global event. Back then, T20s were still a few years away, and cricket wasn’t used to the frequency of games that is commonplace now. Still, Dravid played 11 games in Toronto, Singapore and Nairobi within the space of 30 days.
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