There’s an aggressive mode, then there’s a T20 mode and then there is a beast mode. However, on Wednesday night, New Zealand’s Finn Allen was in an unreal mode himself. He did something extraordinary, smashing the fastest T20 World Cup hundred by some distance. The previous record was of 47 balls. Allen did it in 33 deliveries. Utter domination, rolling South Africa out and booking the ticket to Ahmedabad for the final.
It was not just the speed of the knock but the sheer authority with which Allen dismantled South Africa’s bowling attack. Kagiso Rabada tried cutters, Lungi Ngidi went slower, Marco Jansen banged it short, while Corbin Bosch offered pace. None of it mattered. The Proteas had the most complete bowling unit in the tournament but none of it mattered at the Eden Gardens.
Allen sent the ball racing to the boundary almost at will. Out of the 33 balls he faced, 18 ended at or beyond the rope. The innings included 10 fours and eight sixes, matching the joint-highest boundary count in a T20 World Cup innings. He had earlier reached his fifty in just 19 balls, the fastest ever for New Zealand in the tournament.
Finn-tastic Allen couldn’t beat Kohli’s remarkable stat
For all the records Allen shattered that night, one remarkable mark still belonged to Virat Kohli. Allen’s explosive hundred featured only four dot balls. That is an extraordinary number for such a big innings, especially in a high-pressure semifinal. However, Kohli still holds the edge when it comes to keeping the scoreboard ticking in knockout games.
Among the 76 innings of 30 balls or more played in T20 World Cup semifinals or finals, only one had fewer dot balls than Allen’s effort. Kohli’s unbeaten 72 off 44 against South Africa in the 2014 semifinal contained just three dots. It was one of those masterful knocks by Kohli in T20 World Cups. Against a bowling lineup that featured Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir, Albie Morkel, Wayne Parnell and Beuran Hendricks, Kohli was at his best, steering another chase with his mastery.
Allen’s knock was also historic in several other ways. His eight sixes are the most hit by a New Zealand batter in a T20 World Cup innings and the most by anyone in a knockout match. The 88 runs he scored in boundaries equalled the tournament record set by Gayle in 2016.
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