Sikandar Raza becomes first-ever cricketer to achieve these 2 historic milestones

Zimbabwean skipper Sikandar Raza scored a crucial 48 off 28 balls in the final few overs during their innings in the fourth T20I against India. Courtesy of his quickfire knock, Zimbabwe went past 150 and ended up with a score of 152.

Zimbabwe got to their last fifty off just 26 balls with Raza playing some delightful shots. His knock included two fours and three sixes as he played with a strike rate of over 160.

During his knock, he joined an elite list of all-rounders who have scored over 2000 runs and taken 50 wickets in T20I international cricket. He is the fifth all-rounder after Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Nabi, Virandeep Singh, and Mohammad Hafeez who has scored over 2000 runs and taken 50-plus wickets in T20I cricket. Notably, he became the first-ever cricketer to achieve that feat among Zimbabwe players.

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Sikandar Raza Joins Elite List Of All-Rounders

2551, 149 - Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh)
2165, 96 - Mohammad Nabi (Afghanistan)
2320, 66 - Virandeep Singh (Malaysia)
2514, 61 - Mohammad Hafeez (Pakistan)
2001, 65 - Sikandar Raza (Zimbabwe)

Shakib led the tally with 149 T20I wickets and 2551 runs. Nabi is second on the list with 96 wickets and 2165. Virandeep Singh's tally of 2320 runs and 66 wickets came in just 78 matches which points at an impressive strike rate and average and Raza went past 2000 T20I runs in his 90th match and also has 65 T20I wickets.

Sikandar Raza also became the first Zimbabwean cricketer to score 2000 T20I runs. He also is the second-highest wicket-taker for them with 65 wickets. Raza has been the torchbearer for Zimbabwe cricket for nearly a decade now.

He was nominated as the T20I cricketer of the year in 2023 after splendid stats with both bat and ball. He scored 515 runs from 11 games, while also adding 17 wickets at an economy of 6.57. He scored nine fifties last year out of his 11 innings.

In 2024 unfortunately, he led Zimbabwe in the qualifiers of the T20 World Cup 2024 but failed to take them to the T20 World Cup 2024. Zimbabwe needed to reach the final of the African qualifiers. However, they faced losses to Namibia and Uganda and it was those two teams who qualified for the T20 World Cup knocking the favourites to qualify out of the tournament.

It wasn't the first time that they didn't qualify for T20 WC as earlier in 2009 and 2021 they could not qualify for the tournament due to a withdrawal and suspension. Raza lamented the fact that he could not lead his team to qualification in the major ICC event.

Heading into this series against India, Zimbabwe lost to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the T20I series under Raza's captaincy.

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