The performance of openers has always played a vital role in all formats in the game of cricket, especially in the limited overs games. If the openers provide a solid and aggressive start, the middle order can chase or set a big total.

Pakistan are on the fifth position in the ICC Test team ranking and sixth in the ODI ranking, but in the Twenty20 format, the Green-shirts stand second. This is because of our openers: skipper Babar Azam and wicket-keeper batsman Muhammad Rizwan.

Both have been the most successful openers in the Twenty20 Internationals in recent months. With their consistent steady performances, they are breaking T20I records one after another — be it most century partnerships ever, most runs as batting partners in a calendar year or most T20I runs in a calendar year.

Babar is an all-format batsman. In Tests, he is in fifth position. In ODIs and T20Is, he is the number one. Rizwan is not far behind. He is third in the shortest format of the game.

Last month, Rizwan was named the Men's T20I Cricketer of the Year by the International Cricket Council. The wicketkeeper-batsman ruled the roost in 2021 when it came to the shortest format of the game. Aggregating a staggering 1,326 runs in only 29 matches, Rizwan scored at an average of 73.66 and a strike rate of 134.89.

The ICC also included Rizwan in its T20I team of the year which also included Babar and Shaheen Shah Afridi.

Rizwan, 29, also won the PCB's Most Valuable Cricketer of the Year award last year. Apart from his exploits with the bat, he was as solid as ever behind the stumps, playing a key role in Pakistan's run to the semis during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021, where he ended up as the third-highest run-scorer.

He also scored the maiden T20I century of his career against South Africa in Lahore early in the year and ended it continuing his form with a brilliant knock of 87 against West Indies in Karachi. In the Men's T20 World Cup 2021, he was the third-highest run-scorer with 281 runs in six matches.

In 2021, Rizwan also became the first batter to touch the 1000-run mark in a calendar year in T20Is, and the 2000-run mark in T20s.

Rizwan is just the second player from Pakistan to hit a century in all three formats in international cricket. Ahmed Shahzad was the first. He is only the second keeper in the world to do that. Brendon McCullum was the first.

Rizwan also has the second best average (50.36) in the T20I format. India’s Virat Kohli is on top with 51.50. Babar is in third position with 45.52.

Rizwan played his first Twenty20 for Pakistan on April 24, 2015, against Bangladesh in Dhaka.

From 2015 to December 2020, in his first 25 Twenty20 matches, he failed to score a fifty. But from the New Zealand tour to Zimbabwe series, in 11 T20 innings, he scored six fifties and one hundred at an incredible average of more than 100 and a strike rate of over 135.

His batting average of 79.14 while playing as an opener in the shortest format is the highest for Pakistan. In the middle-order, Rizwan averaged 16.81 in T20I cricket from 15 innings, with his strike rate a lowly 96.35.

In the last 12 months or so, no wicket-keeper has averaged as much (79.14); no one has scored more T20 runs than Rizwan's 554 runs in 12 innings.

Rizwan became the first player to score ten fifties in T20Is in a calendar year.

He has equalled former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's record of most T20 dismissals (39) in a year as a wicketkeeper. Rizwan achieved this feat in the T20 World Cup clash against Afghanistan.

Rizwan's T20I batting average of 86.08 as an opener is the highest among Pakistanis.

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