Shoaib Malik: “I’d like to dedicate this milestone to my parents. They’ve always prayed for me and I wish my father was alive today as he would’ve been very happy, but that’s how life is”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Veteran all-rounder Shoaib Malik became the first Asian player to score 10,000 runs in T20 cricket on Saturday and dedicated his outstanding achievement to his parents and the people of Pakistan.

Malik surpassed the 10,000 run mark in the shortest format when he scored 74 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s National T20 Cup match against Balochistan.

Malik’s knock came off 44 balls and included eight boundaries and two sixes, but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lost the match by six wickets.

Nonetheless, the Pakistan great became the third player in history to amass 10,000 T20 runs after the West Indian duo of Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard.

“I’d like to dedicate this milestone to my parents. They’ve always prayed for me and I wish my father was alive today as he would’ve been very happy, but that’s how life is. Whenever I go to the ground I always call my mother before a match and get her prayers,” Malik was quoted as saying by Saj Sadiq on Twitter.

“I would like to congratulate the people of Pakistan as I am the first Asian cricketer to have reached this milestone of making 10,000 runs in T20 cricket and I hope I will carry on in the way I have been playing.”

Malik has scored 121 in six matches in the National T20 Cup at an average of 40.33 and a strike-rate of 137.50.

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