Teenage Australia Test prospect Sam Konstas hit the fastest-ever half-century by a Sydney Thunder player in the BBL today (December 17), in a thrilling win for the side in their opening match of the 2024/25 competition.
Opening for Thunder facing a chase of 183, Konstas started the innings with a boundary off Matthew Short - the first of three he hit in that over. With freshly appointed captain David Warner dismissed in the following over, Konstas set James Bazley in his sights in the next. He maneuvered into a scoop shot to take four off his first delivery, before pulling a six well over the ropes off his third. After finishing the over with back-to-back fours, he raced to 27 off his first 11 deliveries.
Three more boundaries came in the next over off Henry Thornton, Konstas scoring all of them including a huge six over deep mid-wicket which took him into the 40s. Off the final ball of the next over, Konstas reached 50 by picking up a two into the leg side. He reached the milestone off 20 balls - the fewest balls ever taken for a Sydney Thunder player to reach 50.
Match Match 3, Sydney Thunder vs Adelaide Strikers
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Konstas is some way off the all-time BBL record, however, which belongs to Chris Gayle who hit a half-century off 12 balls for Melbourne Renegades in 2016.
Konstas did, however, take the overall record for the youngest player to score a half-century in the BBL. At just 19 years and 76 days, he also made his maiden first-class hundred this season, becoming the youngest player since Ricky Ponting to score two hundreds in the same Sheffield Shield match.
Following his early success in the first-class cricket, Konstas was in the running to partner Usman Khawaja at the top of the order for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He lost out to Nathan McSweeney, who has a top scored of 39 from five innings in the series so far.
Konstas couldn't make much of an impact in the game after reaching his 50, and was pinned LBW for 56 by Fabian Allen. Sydney Thunder went on to win the match by two wickets with two balls remaining, an unbeaten 42 off 18 balls from Daniel Sams seeing them over the line.
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