On the third day of the ongoing second Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Colombo, Pakistan batsman Saud Shakeel reached his eighth half-century. Shakeel is the first batter in Test history to register a fifty in each of the first seven matches.
Shakeel has eclipsed Sunil Gavaskar, Basil Butcher, Saeed Ahmad, and Bert Sutcliffe, who all scored fifty or more runs in their first six matches.
He took the crease when Pakistan was 210-3 in the first innings, responding to Sri Lanka’s first innings score of 166. He was out after 57 runs, but his partnership with Abdullah Shafique enabled Pakistan expand their first-inning lead to more over 150.
Read more : Abdullah Shafique got his 4th century in PAKvsSL test series
Earlier, in the first Test in Galle, the 27-year-old became the first Pakistani batsman to score a double century on Sri Lankan territory.
His superb effort of 208 not out beat Mohammad Hafeez’s (196) previous greatest individual Test score by a Pakistani hitter in Sri Lanka.
Furthermore, Shakeel became only the second Pakistani batsman, after Zaheer Abbas against England in 1971, to score a double century in a series’ opening away Test match. This achievement adds to his increasing list of accomplishments.
