Rajkot/Mumbai17 minutes ago
Punjab opener Abhishek Sharma has scored a century in 28 balls. Playing for Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) on Thursday, he scored 106 runs on 29 balls. This innings included 11 sixes and 8 fours. On the basis of Abhishek’s innings, the team achieved the target of 142 runs against Meghalaya in just 9.3 overs.
In another match of SMAT, Baroda also made the highest score of 349 runs in T-20 history. The team broke the record of Zimbabwe, who had scored 344 runs in October this year. Whereas, in the third match, Bhuvneshwar Kumar of Uttar Pradesh took a hat-trick. He took 3 wickets giving just 6 runs in 4 overs.
Meghalaya could score only 142 runs
The match between Punjab and Meghalaya started at 9 am at Saurashtra Cricket Stadium in Rajkot. Meghalaya chose batting, but the team could score only 142 runs after losing 7 wickets. Not a single batsman from the team scored a fifty. Ramandeep Singh and Abhishek Sharma took 2-2 wickets from Punjab.
Facing the target of 143 runs, Punjab made a very fast start, the team scored fifty in the third over itself. Most of the runs were scored by Abhishek, during which Harnoor Singh was out after scoring 6 runs and Salil Arora was out after scoring 1 run. Abhishek then added 62 runs with Saurabh Dhaliwal, Dhaliwal was out after scoring 22 runs.
Abhishek scored the fourth century of his SMAT career
In the end, Ramandeep Singh scored 8 runs on 4 balls, but in front of him, Abhishek scored 106 runs on 29 balls and gave the team victory. Abhishek scored runs at a strike rate of 365.52. The economy of all five bowlers of Meghalaya was more than 12.50. Abhishek scored the fourth century of his SMAT career, he is the player with the most centuries in the tournament history.
Abhishek equaled Urvil
Abhishek scored a century in 28 balls, with this he equaled Urvil Patel in terms of T20 century in the fewest balls. Punjab’s wicketkeeper batsman also scored a century against Tripura in 28 balls in SMAT itself. This was the century on the fewest balls by an Indian batsman in T20. Abhishek has now equaled this record.
The record of fastest century in overall T-20 is in the name of Sahil Chauhan of Estonia. He scored a century in 27 balls against Cyprus this year. Now the record of fastest century in India is also in the name of Urvil and Abhishek. Before both of them, in 2013, Chris Gayle had scored a century in 30 balls for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL.
Baroda made the highest score
On Thursday morning itself, Baroda made the highest score in T-20 cricket. The team scored 349 runs in 20 overs against Sikkim on Thursday. Bhanu Pania from Baroda played an unbeaten inning of 134 runs on 51 balls. He hit 4 fours and 15 sixes.
Baroda won the match played in Indore by a huge margin of 263 runs. The team hit 18 fours and 37 sixes in the innings. That means a total of 294 runs were scored from boundaries, which was also the highest number of runs scored from fours and sixes in T-20 history. Read the full news…
UP won with Bhuvaneshwar’s hat-trick
In the other SMAT match, Uttar Pradesh captain Bhuvneshwar Kumar took a hat-trick. He took 3 wickets giving just 6 runs in 4 overs. Jharkhand chose bowling at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. UP scored 160 runs losing 8 wickets, Rinku Singh played an inning of 45 runs. From Jharkhand, Bal Krishna took 3 wickets and Vivekananda Tiwari took 2 wickets.
Jharkhand had lost only 5 wickets till the score of 116 runs in 16 overs. Anukul Roy was set. Here in the 17th over, Bhuvi took a hat-trick and did not even give any runs. Jharkhand’s score became 116/8. Anukul still held on, he was out after scoring 91 runs in the 20th over. After his wicket, the team was limited to 150 runs and lost the close match by 10 runs.
Fourth hat-trick of SMAT 2024
Bhuvneshwar became the third bowler to take a hat-trick in the current season of SMAT. Before him, Uttarakhand captain Akash Madhwal and Karnataka leg spinner Shreyas Gopal had taken hat-tricks in Indore. Madhwal took a hat-trick against Karnataka and Gopal took a hat-trick against Baroda. After Bhuvi, Goa’s Felix Alemao also took a hat-trick against Nagaland in Hyderabad. In this way, there have now been 4 hat-tricks in the tournament this year.
