Kieron Pollard smashes six 6s in an over against Sri Lanka

Kieron Pollard created history on Wednesday night as he hit six sixes off one single Akila Dananjaya over in their victory over Sri Lanka in the 1st T20I. He becomes only the third batsman in international cricket to complete this feat after Herschelle Gibbs and Yuvraj Singh. Herschelle Gibbs was the first to do it in international cricket during the 2007 ODI World Cup against Dan van Bunge off Zimbabwe. Yuvraj Singh followed it up in the T20 World Cup later that year and hit six 6s off Stuart Broad. And now 14 years later Kieron Pollard joins the club after hitting six consecutive maximums’ against Akila Dananjaya off Sri Lanka.

Pollard’s effort came in an extraordinary run chase for the West Indies. Sri Lanka only managed 131 runs off their 20 overs after some economical bowling from Jason Holder and co. In their reply, West Indies got off to a flying start thanks to Evin Lewis who hit three sixes in the very first over of the innings. He and Simmons continued the onslaught to help West Indies score 48 runs in the first three overs without losing a wicket. Sri Lanka fought back hard in the next over thanks to an excellent hat-trick from Akila Dananjaya. The off-spinner dismissed the trio of left-handers Lewis, Gayle and Pooran to give Sri Lanka a life-line in the game.

Unfortunately, cricket is the ultimate leveller and in Dananjaya’s very next over, he had to face one of the best power-hitters in the history of the game in Kieron Pollard. Pollard clubbed the ball to all parts of the ground and hit six sixes to help West Indies to a score of 98-4 in the powerplay which sealed the game.

West Indies did lose a few more wickets but Dwayne Bravo and Jason Holder were able to steady the ship and take West Indies home in only 13.1 overs. Pollard was adjudged as Man of the Match and was pleased that this herculean task came at the international level. In his post-game interview, he stated “obviously it’s going to be up there. It is international cricket, this is not franchise cricket or club cricket, getting the opportunity to do that was fantastic. And thank god for small mercies, giving me the strength to do that.”