On Saturday, March 16, Islamabad United defeated Peshawar Zalmi in Qualifier 2 of the 2024 edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) to book a place in the final against Multan Sultans.
Peshawar Zalmi were led by talismanic batsman Babar Azam, who had a brilliant season with the bat.
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Babar scored 569 runs in 11 innings to record his best-ever tally in PSL in terms of runs. His previous best tally was 554 runs in PSL 2020-21. He fell just 19 runs short of equalling Fakhar Zaman's all-time record of most runs in a single PSL season.
In this article, The Sporting News takes a look at how Babar's strike-rate fared in comparison to other batsmen.
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Babar Azam's PSL 2024 strike-rate: Where does he rank among the fastest-scoring batsmen?
In PSL 2024, Babar scored with a strike rate of 142.61, his second-best tally after a season.
If you compare his strike-rate in PSL 2024 to his overall PSL career strike-rate, it's a much, much healthier figure. Babar scores at 127.41 overall, which means that in PSL 2024, he scored around one extra run every seven balls.
However, he ranks 14th in PSL 2024 when you look at the highest strike-rates of batsmen who scored at least 100 runs.
| Batsman | Team | Innings | Runs | Strike-rate |
| Iftikhar Ahmed | Multan Sultans | 10 | 227 | 199.12 |
| Azam Khan | Islamabad United | 9 | 196 | 178.18 |
| Usman Khan | Multan Sultans | 6 | 373 | 168.01 |
| Johnson Charles | Multan Sultans | 3 | 106 | 165.62 |
| Shaheen Afridi | Lahore Qalandars | 6 | 107 | 164.61 |
| Aamer Jamal | Peshawar Zalmi | 8 | 138 | 162.35 |
| Saim Ayub | Peshawar Zalmi | 11 | 345 | 157.53 |
| Rassie van der Dussen | Lahore Qalandars | 7 | 364 | 154.89 |
| Kieron Pollard | Karachi Kings | 8 | 239 | 151.26 |
| Rovman Powell | Peshawar Zalmi | 11 | 228 | 150.00 |
| Sherfane Rutherford | Quetta Gladiators | 6 | 151 | 148.03 |
| Shadab Khan | Islamabad United | 11 | 301 | 146.11 |
| Agha Salman | Islamabad United | 11 | 300 | 142.86 |
| Babar Azam | Peshawar Zalmi | 11 | 569 | 142.61 |
PSL 2024: Babar Azam vs other openers
One metric where Babar is one of the best in PSL 2024, as far as the strike-rate is concerned, is the strike-rate of openers who have scored at least 100 runs this season.
Babar has the second-best strike-rate among all openers, bettered only by his Peshawar Zalmi teammate and opening partner Saim Ayub.
| Player | Team | Innings | Runs | Average | S.R. | 50+ | HS |
| Saim Ayub | Peshawar Zalmi | 11 | 345 | 31.36 | 157.53 | 2 | 88 |
| Babar Azam | Peshawar Zalmi | 11 | 569 | 56.90 | 142.61 | 6 | 111* |
| Saud Shakeel | Quetta Gladiators | 10 | 323 | 35.89 | 141.67 | 2 | 88* |
| Jason Roy | Quetta Gladiators | 10 | 253 | 25.30 | 141.34 | 2 | 75 |
| Yasir Khan | Multan Sultans | 4 | 142 | 35.50 | 140.59 | 1 | 54 |
| Colin Munro | Islamabad United | 9 | 309 | 34.33 | 139.18 | 3 | 84 |
| Sahibzada Farhan | Lahore Qalandars | 8 | 266 | 38.00 | 133.67 | 3 | 72* |
| Tim Seifert | Karachi Kings | 7 | 182 | 26.00 | 132.84 | 0 | 49 |
| Alex Hales | Islamabad United | 10 | 148 | 14.80 | 124.36 | 0 | 47 |
| Mohammad Rizwan | Multan Sultans | 11 | 381 | 34.64 | 124.10 | 4 | 82 |
| Fakhar Zaman | Lahore Qalandars | 8 | 157 | 19.63 | 115.44 | 1 | 54 |
| Shan Masood | Karachi Kings | 8 | 134 | 16.75 | 101.51 | 0 | 36 |
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