On this day in 2021: . Four years ago, Kieron Pollard became only the third cricketer in history to hit six sixes in an over. Said by many to be the hardest hitter of a cricket ball that the game has ever known, he exhibited powers next to none against Sri Lanka on March 4, 2021.
The first T20I of the bilateral series saw Pollard announce his presence on the field by hitting six sixes in six balls against Sri Lanka’s Akila Dananjaya.
The knock has put Pollard in the elite company of South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs and India’s Yuvraj Singh. Gibbs achieved the feat during the 2007 ODI World Cup against the Netherlands, while Yuvraj hit Broad for the sixes in the 2007 T20 World Cup.
The match took place at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua. After the toss, they put Sri Lanka in to bat. The bowlers of the Caribbean combined to restrict Sri Lanka to 131 for 9.
West Indies got a flying start with a 52-run opening stand in the chase. Akila Dananjaya struck with a hat-trick to stop the home side’s momentum. They lost another one in the second over and, before anyone knew it, they were looking shaky at 62/4. The pressurized situation turned all eyes toward Kieron Pollard.
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Kieron Pollard had scored two runs off four balls and when he came onto face the first ball of Akila Dananjaya’s over, he lofted it towards mid-on. The contact wasn’t the perfect one but it still traveled over the offside fence responsibly courtesy of Pollard’s power. That was followed by a breathtaking shot straight down the ground to the sightscreen and then a few more back-to-back sixes.
The hat trick of sixes hit by Pollard took his tally from 20 in seven deliveries. The second set of sixes was directed towards the boundary on the on-side. Pollard hit the ball so powerfully that they sailed like missiles over the boundary rope.
With Pollard’s knock, he became the first West Indies player to hit six maximums in an over of an international fixture. The batsman was finally out in just one delivery due to an LBW decision, having scored 38 runs off 11 deliveries.
Pollard, however, had done enough to help the hosts land the successful chase in 13.1 overs. They clinched the match by a comfortable four-wicket margin and took the series lead.
Those enjoying the match at the time rather ironically added Pollard’s fearless knock to their list of shout-outs. The brilliance of Maxwell and the rabid aggression marked by Pollard’s sixes would equally be considered among his best legacies as one of the sport’s foremost hitters.
