Muhammad Waseem was in fine form in the Asia Cup game against Oman and blasted a magnificent 69 in 54 balls, including six fours and three sixes.
Waseem is the poster boy of UAE cricket and leads the charts of most runs by a UAE batter, with 3010 runs to his name in 84 matches. No other batsman in the UAE team has crossed the 1500-run mark in T20Is, which tells about the impact Waseem has had on the UAE cricket team.
The game against Oman was just another day of Waseem putting the team in a great position. Alishan Sharafu got the team off to a great start, scoring 51, but his wicket meant that UAE needed Waseem to bat through and get the team to a comfortable position. The 29-year-old did exactly the same and stitched crucial partnerships to help the team cross the 170-run mark.
Muhammad Waseem Creates History
The knock also helped Waseem create history and broke a massive record of Jos Butter. Waseem crossed the 3000 run mark in T20I cricket, and he did it at a better rate than Jos Buttler, thus becoming the fastest to the milestone by balls. The England stalwart scored 3000 runs in 2068 balls, but Waseem reached the milestone in 1947 deliveries. He is the only player in the world to score 3000 T20I runs in fewer than 2000 balls.
Fastest to 3000 T20I Runs (By Balls)
| Batsman | Balls |
| Muhammad Waseem | 1947 |
| Jos Buttler | 2068 |
| Aaron Finch | 2077 |
| David Warner | 2113 |
| Rohit Sharma | 2149 |
Waseem also became the fourth fastest to reach 3000 T20I runs in terms of innings taken. He reached the milestone in 84 innings. The record is held by Mohammad Rizwan, who reached the feat in 79 innings. Virat Kohli and Babar Azam scored 3000 runs in 81 innings. He also became the 11th player to score 3000 runs in T20I cricket, but has the best strike rate among all players who have scored 3000 or more runs in T20I cricket.
Waseem is young and could be in the hunt for breaking Rohit Sharma’s record of most runs in T20I cricket. Rohit scored 4231 runs in his T20I career.