Following the feat, Paul Stirling made his way to the elite club where big names like New Zealand’s Martin Guptill, India’s Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are already included.
Ireland has finally registered a series win on home soil after enduring a number of defeats against India, New Zealand and South Africa respectively. On Wednesday, they beat Afghanistan by 7 wickets in the rain-reduced fifth T20 International at Belfast’s Civil Service Cricket Club. With the win, the hosts bagged the five-match series 3-2. During the match, there is a different milestone achieved by Ireland opener Paul Stirling who registered his name in the history book of cricket after becoming the fourth cricketer to breach the 3000-run mark in T20 Internationals.
Following the feat, he made his way to the elite club where big names like New Zealand’s Martin Guptill, India’s Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are already included. While Guptill is leading the tally with 3,497 runs in 121 matches so far, Rohit Sharma is the second batter there with 3,487 runs in 132 matches and Virat Kohli stands at the third spot, scoring 3,308 runs in 99 games.
On Wednesday, Paul Stirling headed to the venue with 5 runs left to achieve the goal. He did not take much time to land on the record book. While being on a chase of 56 runs in 7 overs, the Irish batter opened his account with a boundary against Afghan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq through the point region. He failed to connect the second delivery. In the third one, he pushed it to the cover and completed an easy single taking his T20I overall runs to 3,000.
Paul Stirling continued the show for some moments before falling victim to Mujeeb Ur Rahman. He recorded 16 runs off 10 deliveries including a boundary and a maximum. Apart from him, skipper Andrew Balbirnie (9 off 9 balls), Lorcan Tucker (14 off 12 balls), Harry Tector (9 off 5 balls) and George Dockrell (7 off 4 balls) made notable contributions to the chase.
Since his debut in 2009, Paul Stirling has needed 114 matches to reach the feat at an average of 28.67. He has maintained an impressive strike rate of 134.84. The right-handed batter fetched a total of 20 half-centuries and a single ton so far in the shortest format of the game.
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