On this day in 2021: Kieron Pollard smashes six sixes in an over
The West Indies vs Sri Lanka T20I in 2021 on this day (4th March) at Antigua brought with it some of the most incredible scenes in cricket’s history. It is not very often that a bowler who has taken a hat trick in a T20I game ends up being known for some other reasons arising out of the same game.
When Akila Dananjaya took his hat trick sending back Evin Lewis, Chris Gayle and Nicholas Pooran, he was all over the moon. However, little did the spinner know of what was to come.
In one of the most jaw-dropping turnarounds the game has ever seen, Danajaya was smashed for six consecutive sixes by Kieron Pollard in his very next over. The bowler who was on cloud nine just a few moments ago was hoping to have the ground beneath him open up so as for him to go into hiding.
Pollard hammers six sixes in an over
Pollard walked out to bat in the fourth over of his team’s innings with West Indies at 52-3 chasing 132. Akila Dananjaya’s bowling figures read 2.0-0-17-3 when he marked his run-up to bowl the sixth over of the innings. What followed is something the bowler never could have imagined.
Pollard lofted the first ball over the bowler’s head and it went sailing into the long-on boundary for a six. The second ball was smoked down the ground hitting the sightscreen for another six. Pollard freed his arms to send the ball flying into the long-on boundary for a hattrick of sixes. Dananjaya was bemused by the counter-attack. He turned to a wrong-un which the batter carted over the deep mid-wicket boundary for another six. The next ball was a leg break which Pollard creamed with brute power for his fifth six in a row,
The way the Windies skipper batted, the odds were in his favour to hit the last ball for a six. The bowler under all sorts of pressure drifted onto the 6’4” tall batter’s legs. Pollard flicked the ball with disdain over the mid-wicket fence to make it six sixes in an over.
Pollard went on to become only the second batter after India’s Yuvraj Singh to achieve the record in T20I cricket. He became only the third batter to achieve the feat in all international cricket since Herschelle Gibbs and Yuvraj Singh. USA’s Jaskaran Malhotra has since become the fourth player to do so.
