Pakistan batter Mohammad Rizwan and his abilities are known to one and all. On numerous occasions, the 29-year-old has played magical knocks for the Men in Green. Rizwan, who has already announced himself at the international stage, enjoys a good record at international level. If we take his T20Is stats, in particular, he is just spectacular.
Rizwan has scored 1144 runs across 44 T20Is at an average of 52.00 and a strike rate of 130.00 that too with a century to his name. However, stats could still be not able to describe his class and potential alone as the fans who closely follow the game know what sort of player he is. A glimpse of it was on display on Sunday when Pakistan faced their arch-rivals India in their 2021 T20 World Cup opener.
Rizwan scored an unbeaten 79 off 55 balls, smashing 6 fours and 3 sixes, to help Pakistan hand India a shocking 10-wicket loss. With skipper Babar Azam, he stitched 152 runs to make mockery of India's total and help Pakistan register their maiden win over Men in Blue in World Cup. What impressed everyone was the confidence and authority with which Rizwan batted throughout the innings.
By watching Rizwan's game one could have easily comprehended that the player had come to bat with a plan ready in his mind. He used the dimensions of the ground very smartly which helped him stay unbeaten by the end of the game. A recent video shared by ICC has revealed that Rizwan actually did shadow batting on the ground ahead of the match which helped him decide his game in advance. What surprised everyone that Rizwan played exactly the same shots in the game that he had practised during his shadow batting.
Here is the video:
Pakistan beat India for first time ever in World Cup
Notably, Men in Green's win over India on Sunday was their maiden victory over their arch-rivals in a World Cup. Before this, the two sides had faced each other a total of 12 times with India winning all of them. Talking about T20 World Cup, the two sides had faced each other 7 times before this.