Nicholas Pooran struck the first half-century of the 2024 Caribbean Premier League, and overtook Chris Gayle to set a new world record in the process.
Turning out for the Trinbago Knight Riders in their first match of the season against the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, Nicholas Pooran came to the middle at the end of the fourth over, after Sunil Narine had skied a short delivery from Ryan John to be dismissed for 38 off 19 balls.
Pooran wasted no time getting stuck into his innings, hitting the second, third and fourth balls he faced for a four and two sixes. He was joined by Keacy Carty in the eighth over, with the score at 89-3 and the pair put on 122 runs for the fourth wicket in just 59 balls.
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By the time Pooran was dismissed, caught in the deep off Anrich Nortje, the scoreboard read 211-4 in 17.4 overs. He had scored 97 off just 43 balls. A whopping 82 of his runs came in boundaries – seven fours and nine sixes.
Carty (73*) and Kieron Pollard then lifted the Knight Riders to 250-4, the third-highest team total in CPL history. They went on to win by 44 runs, with the only real resistance coming from Mikyle Louis (56) and Tristan Stubbs (39).
Nicholas Pooran overtakes Chris Gayle for most sixes hit in a calendar year
Coming into this match, Pooran had represented seven different teams in T20 cricket this year – Durban's Super Giants, Lucknow Super Giants, MI Emirates, MI New York, Northern Superchargers, Rangpur Riders and West Indies. He had notched up a massive 130 sixes in 56 innings.
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In the 12th over, when Pooran went down on one knee and clubbed Tabraiz Shamsi over the leg side fence for his sixth six of the night, he brought up his half-century off 21 balls, and set a new world record. It was his 136th six of the year in T20 cricket, taking him past Chris Gayle's existing record of 135 for the most sixes in men's T20 cricket, in a calendar year.
Earlier this year, Pooran had broken Gayle's monopoly on the top five positions on this list when he hit his second six for Northern Superchargers against Southern Brave on July 30. Now, Gayle occupies No.s 2-6, as well as No.8. Andre Russell is the only other man to hit 100 T20 sixes in a calendar year, with 101 in 2019.
Pooran has also inched closer towards another record. His knock of 97 took him past Babar Azam (2021), Mohammad Rizwan (2022) and Jos Buttler (2023) for the most T20 runs in a calendar year. His tally now stands at 1844 runs.
Alex Hales (1946 runs in 2022) and Mohammad Rizwan (2036 runs in 2021) are the only ones above him, and he has every chance of taking top spot by the end of the Caribbean Premier League.
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