Punjab opener Abhishek Sharma has scored a century in 28 balls. He scored 106 off 29 balls against Meghalaya in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) on Thursday. This innings includes 11 sixes and 8 fours. Based on Abhishek's innings, the Punjab team chased down the target of 142 runs against Meghalaya in just 9.3 overs.
In another SMAT match, Baroda also scored 349, the highest in T-20 history. The team broke Zimbabwe's record of 344 runs in October this year. While in the third match, Uttar Pradesh's Bhuvneshwar Kumar took a hat-trick. He took 3 wickets for just 6 runs in 4 overs.
Meghalaya could score only 142 runs against Punjab The match between Punjab and Meghalaya started at the Niranjan Shah Cricket Stadium in Rajkot. Meghalaya chose to bat, but the team could only score 142 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. Not a single batsman of the team could score a fifty. Ramandeep Singh and Abhishek Sharma took 2 wickets each for Punjab.
Chasing a target of 143 runs, Punjab got off to a fast start, with the team scoring a fifty in the third over. Most runs were scored by Abhishek, during which Harnoor Singh was dismissed with 6 runs and Salil Arora was dismissed with 1 run. Abhishek then added 62 runs with Saurabh Dhaliwal, Dhaliwal was dismissed for 22 runs.
Abhishek scored the fourth century of his SMAT career Punjab's Ramandeep Singh scored 8 runs off 4 balls, but Abhishek scored 106 runs off 29 balls to lead the team to victory. Abhishek scored runs at a strike rate of 365.52. All the five Meghalaya bowlers had an economy of over 12.50. Abhishek scored the fourth century of his SMAT career, making him the highest century scorer in the history of the tournament.
Abhishek equals Urvil Abhishek equaled Urvil Patel in terms of scoring T20 centuries in the fewest balls. Gujarat wicketkeeper Batter Urville scored a 28-ball century against Tripura in SMAT itself. This was the lowest century by an Indian batsman in T20Is. Abhishek has now equaled this record.
Estonia's Sahil Chauhan holds the record for fastest century in overall T-20. He scored a 27-ball century against Cyprus this year. Now the record for the fastest century in India is also held by Urvil and Abhishek. Before these two, in 2013, Chris Gayle scored a 30-ball century for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL.
Baroda scored the highest On Thursday morning itself, Baroda scored the highest score in T-20 cricket. The team scored 349 runs in 20 overs against Sikkim on Thursday. Bhanu Pania played an unbeaten innings of 134 runs off 51 balls from Baroda. He hit 4 fours and 15 sixes.
In the match played in Indore, Baroda won by a huge margin of 263 runs. The team hit 18 fours and 37 sixes in the innings. That meant a total of 294 runs scored from boundaries, which was also the most runs scored from fours and sixes in T-20 history. …
UP win with Bhubaneswar's hat-trick In another SMAT match, Uttar Pradesh captain Bhuvneshwar Kumar took a hat-trick. He took 3 wickets for just 6 runs in 4 overs. Jharkhand chose to bowl at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. UP scored 160 runs for the loss of 8 wickets, Rinku Singh played an innings of 45 runs. For Jharkhand, Bal Krishna took 3 wickets and Vivekananda Tiwari took 2 wickets.
Jharkhand lost only 5 wickets to score 116 runs in 16 overs. Anukul Roy was set. Here in the 17th over, Bhuvi took a hat-trick and did not give away any runs. Jharkhand scored 116/8. Anukul still holding on, he was dismissed for 91 in the 20th over. After his wicket, the team was restricted to 150 runs and lost a close match by 10 runs.
Fourth hat trick of SMAT 2024 Bhuvneshwar has become the third bowler to take a hat-trick in the current season of SMAT. Earlier, Uttarakhand captain Akash Madhwal and Karnataka leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal took 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. Thus, there have now been 4 hat-tricks in the tournament this year.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
