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- Babar joins Amla as the fastest to reach 6000 ODI runs, moving Kohli to third place.
Babar joins Amla as the fastest to reach 6000 ODI runs, moving Kohli to third place.
Babar Azam reached the 6000-run milestone in ODI cricket in just 123 innings
Babar Azam reached the 6000-run milestone in ODI cricket in just 123 innings, making him the joint-fastest to achieve this feat alongside Hashim Amla. He accomplished this during the tri-series final against New Zealand in Karachi. With this achievement, Babar overtook Virat Kohli, who had reached the mark in 136 innings, pushing him down to third place on the list. Before Babar Azam, Saeed Anwar held the record for being the fastest Pakistani to reach 6,000 ODI runs, achieving it in 162 innings.
Babar shattered that record by a massive 39 innings. He also holds the record for being the fastest to 5000 ODI runs, reaching the milestone in just 97 innings. Additionally, he is the second-fastest to 4000 runs, getting there in 81 innings—just one behind Hashim Amla, who took 82.
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International games
New Zealand vs Pakistan
PAK 242 (49.3)
NZ 243/5 (45.2)
New Zealand won by 5 wkts
Zimbabwe vs Ireland, 1st ODI
ZIM 299/5 (50)
IRE 250 (46)
Zimbabwe won by 49 runs
Ghosh and Ahuja orchestrate a sensational comeback as RCB pull off the biggest chase in WPL history.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 202 for 4 (Ghosh 64*, Perry 57, Ahuja 30*, Gardner 2-33) beat Gujarat Giants 201 for 5 (Gardner 79, Mooney 56, Renuka 2-25) by six wickets
In a high-scoring thriller that saw both the highest aggregate and the biggest successful chase in WPL history, defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru made light work of a 202-run target in Vadodara.
Richa Ghosh, who got a lucky reprieve on the first ball, proved she was more than just power-hitting. Her explosive 23-ball fifty gave RCB the momentum they needed after Ellyse Perry’s solid 57 ended, leaving them with 93 to get off 46 balls. Ghosh's unbeaten 64 off 26 deliveries included a game-changing assault on Gujarat Giants captain Ashleigh Gardner, smashing 23 runs in the 16th over to turn the match on its head.
She found the perfect ally in Kanika Ahuja, the young left-hander who played a blistering 13-ball 30. Their unbroken 93-run partnership off just 37 balls sealed an incredible comeback for RCB, overshadowing Gardner’s stunning 79* off 37 balls from earlier in the game.
“Who's had the better lunch, the bowlers or the batters?"
- Commentator Niall O'Brien wonders how Ireland and Zimbabwe will fare in the second session of day one in Bulawayo
Domestic cricket + T20 leagues
Gujarat Giants Women vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women
GGTW 201/5 (20)
RCBW 202/4 (18.3)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women won by 6 wkts
The Match That Time Forgot: Cricket's 12-Day Marathon
In an era where Test matches are neatly packaged into five days, it seems almost unbelievable that a cricket match could last for 12 days. Yet in March 1939, England and South Africa played what would become known as "The Timeless Test" – a match that only ended because the English team had to catch their ship home.
The setting was Durban, South Africa, in what was the fifth and deciding Test of the series. Unlike modern Tests, this match had no predetermined end date – it would be played until there was a result. What followed was a cricket marathon that would test the limits of both players and spectators.
England won the toss and batted first, scoring a solid 530 runs. South Africa responded with 481. Already, five days had passed – the length of a modern Test match – but this was just the beginning. England's second innings produced 654 runs, setting South Africa a daunting target of 696 to win.
What happened next was extraordinary. The South African team, led by Alan Melville, started their chase steadily. By the tenth day, they had reached 479 for 4, needing just 217 more runs for victory. Victory was within reach, but then Mother Nature intervened. Rain had already interrupted play several times during the match, but now it became persistent.
On the twelfth day, with South Africa at 654 for 5 and requiring just 42 more runs for what would have been a world-record chase, the English team had to make a difficult decision. Their ship back to England was departing, and they couldn't afford to miss it with World War II looming on the horizon. The match was declared a draw, and cricket's longest game came to an anticlimactic end.
The statistics from the match are staggering: 1,981 runs were scored, 5,447 balls were bowled, and the actual playing time was 43 hours and 16 minutes. The match spanned twelve days from March 3-14, with five days lost to rain. England's Bill Edrich spent over 11 hours at the crease scoring 219 runs, yet his marathon innings is often forgotten in the context of the marathon match.
The Timeless Test led to significant changes in cricket. The impracticality of such lengthy matches became evident, and the five-day format was standardized for all Test matches after World War II. Today, with even five-day Tests being questioned in favour of shorter formats, the 12-day Durban Test stands as a reminder of a different era in cricket – when time was truly no obstacle to the game.
Ironically, after all that cricket, neither team could claim victory. Perhaps it's fitting that cricket's longest game ended in a draw, leaving us with one of the sport's most fascinating "what if" stories. Would South Africa have completed the highest successful chase in Test history? We'll never know, but the legend of the Timeless Test lives on, a testament to cricket's capacity for endless drama.
On This Day
1896
It was a day to forget for South Africa as they were skittled out for just 30 by England in Port Elizabeth—their lowest Test score ever and the second lowest in history. The chief architect of their downfall was the relentless George Lohmann, who followed up his 7 for 38 in the first innings with an astonishing 8 for 7 in the second. Fittingly, he sealed the match—wrapped up in under two days and 200 five-ball overs—with a hat-trick
Coming tomorrow
Mumbai Indians Women vs Delhi Capitals Women