Allrounder also makes second-fastest List A half-century along the way
Thisara Perera, the allrounder, became the first Sri Lankan to hit six sixes in an over in any form of professional cricket, on Sunday. En route to his unbeaten 13-ball 52, he also smashed the second-fastest half-century in List A cricket, for Army Sports Cricket Club in SLC’s Major Clubs tournament.
The record for fastest fifty is held by former Sri Lanka allrounder Kaushalya Weeraratne, who smashed a 12-ball half-century for Ragana Cricket Club against Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club in November 2005. That knock, an 18-ball 66, consisted of two fours and eight sixes, including five off a single over.
Perera, leading Sri Lanka Army Sports Club, walked in to bat at No. 5 with 20 balls remaining in their innings that was truncated to 41-overs-a-side. Part-time offspinner and experienced first-class cricketer Dilhan Cooray, playing for Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club, was the bowler at the receiving end of Perera’s onslaught. Cooray went on to concede 73 in four wicketless overs. For the record, the match was abandoned with Bloomfield struggling on 73 for 6 in their chase of 318.
Perera is the second cricketer, after West Indies T20I captain Kieron Pollard, to achieve this feat in 2021. Pollard achieved the feat just three weeks prior to Perera’s, when he hit Sri Lanka’s Akila Dhananjaya for six sixes in a T20I in Coolidge. Overall, Perera is part of a small list of nine to have achieved this feat in professional cricket, after Garfield Sobers, Ravi Shastri, Herschelle Gibbs, Yuvraj Singh, Ross Whiteley, Hazratullah Zazai, Leo Carter and Pollard.