Interesting Facts, Trivia, And Records About 'Asian Bradman' Zaheer Abbas

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Zaheer Abbas, who celebrates his birthday on 24th July, was one of the finest batters not only in Pakistan but globally as well. The bespectacled right-handed batter drove the ball so beautifully, it was almost therapeutic. 

Here are some interesting facts, trivia, and records about Zaheer Abbas: 

1) Abbas was the first Asian batter to score one hundred first-class centuries. 

2) Zaheer Abbas and Geoffrey Boycott are the only two batters to have scored their hundredth first-class century in a Test match. 

3) He was the first batter to score hundreds in three successive ODI innings and five successive international innings. This feat came during the series against India in 1982. In a series where the Tests and ODIs were played alternately, Abbas made five successive international hundreds.

• 215 (254), first Test, Lahore
• 118 (86), second ODI, Multan
• 186 (246), second Test, Karachi
• 105 (82), third ODI, Lahore
• 168 (176), third Test, Faisalabad
• 25* (43), fourth Test, Hyderabad (Sind)
• 113 (99), fourth ODI, Karachi

4) Abbass became the first Pakistan batter to get to 4000 Test runs, and then the first to 5000. At the time of his retirement in 1985, he was the only Pakistan batter, aside from Javed Miandad, to have over 5000 Test runs.

5) Abbas played 13 county seasons for Gloucestershire. During that time, Zaheer scored over a thousand runs in the majority of his thirteen seasons. He also made over two thousand runs in a single season on two occasions (1976 and 1981). He played 206 first-class games, scoring over 16,000 runs while averaging 49.79, hitting 49 centuries and 76 fifties.

6) Abbas is the only player to have scored a century and a double century in a first-class match four times; he remained unbeaten in all eight innings. 

• 216* & 156* - for Gloucestershire against Surrey, 1976 
• 230* & 104* - for Gloucestershire against Kent, 1976 
• 205* & 108* - for Gloucestershire against Sussex, 1977 
• 215* & 150* - for Gloucestershire against Somerset, 1981

7) In 2015, Zaheer became the ICC president, the third cricketer after Colin Cowdrey and Clyde Walcott, to hold the post and was the last person to hold the distinction before it was abolished in 2016.

8) Abbas was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2020. 

9) Zaheer Abbas played 78 test matches in which he scored 5062 runs, including 12 centuries. In 62 ODIs, Abbas made 2572 runs. The right-handed batter played 457 first-class matches in which he amassed 34843 runs at an average of 51.54 and hit 108 centuries.

10) For the batting exploits throughout his career, Zaheer Abbas was nicknamed 'Asian Bradman'.