India, Jan. 22 -- Abhishek Sharma's 84 off 35 against New Zealand in Nagpur came with the usual headline fuel, but the bigger detail sat in the career ledger. During the innings, the left-hander became the quickest batter in men's T20 cricket to reach 5000 runs by balls faced.

He got there in 2898 balls, the fastest on record, ahead of Andre Russell (2942). Tim David (3127), Will Jacks (3196) and Glenn Maxwell (3239) complete the top five on the same metric, underlining how rare it is for a high-volume scorer to keep this kind of pace over multiple seasons.

For T20 analysis, "balls faced to 5000 runs" is a particularly revealing way to frame the achievement because it removes much of the noise created by innings-based milestones. Inning...