Nicholas Pooran goes past Chris Gayle, becomes West Indies' leading six hitter

Nicholas Pooran blasted eight sixes in his 98-run knock against Afghanistan in St Lucia.

Nicholas Pooran was at his destructive best in the WI vs AFG match of Group C in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2024 as the left-hander smashed 98 runs in 53 balls.

In his jaw-dropping knock at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia, Nicholas Pooran smoked eight sixes and six fours, helping West Indies post 218 runs on the board. The hosts won by a whopping 104 runs and ended the group stage with four wins in four games.

With these eight sixes, Pooran became the leading six-hitter of the West Indies in men’s T20Is, going past the legendary opener Chris Gayle!

Nicholas Pooran has now clattered 128 sixes in 84 T20I innings

A few days ago, Pooran had surpassed Gayle’s tally of 1899 runs to become West Indies’ leading men’s T20I run-scorer. And now with this knock, he is now the region’s leading six-hitter with 128 sixes; Gayle hit 124 sixes in his illustrious career during which he won two T20 World Cup trophies. Pooran is eyeing his first world title in this competition.

At the end of his knock, Pooran has 2012 runs, becoming the first man to cross the 2000-run mark in T20Is for the West Indies.

Coming to the match, the southpaw, unfortunately, missed his maiden T20I century by only two runs as he got run out in the last over of the innings.

While bagging the Man of the Match award, Pooran said, “You don’t want to be on 97 and get run-out but it was all about reaching a respectable total. I assessed the conditions early on, we had a good start in the powerplay, I had to take the responsibility in the middle overs with the Afghanistan spinners bowling. I just felt that it’s my night and I could get on with it. It’s difficult to strike the ball when it’s a little slow and spinning, but when you get a good wicket like this, you got to capitalise, got to appreciate the conditions. It’s just not today, it started 12-14 months ago we have been consistent as a team, we went to No. 3 in the rankings.”

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