5th T20I: Ishan Kishan becomes India's most prolific run-scorer in calendar year

Hamilton: India star Ishan Kishan etched his name into the history books as he became India's most prolific run-scorer in T20Is in a single calendar year during the fifth and final match of the series against New Zealand here at Seddon Park on Sunday.

Kishan scored an impressive 61 from 32 balls to help the Men in Blue make 191/8 in the final rubber. His stroke-filled knock saw him break former captain Suryakumar Yadav's record for most runs by an Indian in the format in a single year.

The wicketkeeper batter now has 1220 runs in 37 innings this year, going past the previous Indian record of SKY, who had scored 1164 runs in 31 innings in 2022.

Before the fifth T20I, Kishan had 1159 runs and needed six runs to go past the 2026 T20 World Cup-winning captain, which he achieved pretty early in his innings.

The Southpaw now has the second most runs in a single year among full-member nations and is fourth overall. He is behind Karanbir Singh (1488) of Austria, Mohammad Rizwan (1326) of Pakistan and Fiaz Ahmed (1251) of Bahrain in the list.

Meanwhile, Kishan also completed his 2000 T20I runs during the same innings. Kishan, who had a quiet series so far and missed a couple of games due to injury, hit an impressive 61 from 32 balls to get to the milestone. He has also become the third-fastest Indian to complete 2000 runs in the shortest international format in terms of balls taken.

The canny left-handed batter completed his 2000 T20I runs in 1345 balls, as Abhishek holds the India record, having got there in 1024 balls, while Surya is second with 1164 deliveries taken to score 2000 runs.

Coming into the fifth match, Kishan had scores of 1 and 0 in the first and fourth T20I he played, and he missed the middle two due to a low-grade right adductor strain. He needed 45 runs to get to 2000 runs, and he achieved the mark with a strong showing in the final rubber.

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