Brendon McCullum blasts of an unbeaten 158 in T20 Blast

Brendon McCullum blasts of an unbeaten 158 in T20 Blast: Brendon McCullum set fire at the Edgbaston in Natwest T20 Blast as the New Zealand captain smoked an unbeaten 64-ball 158 and equaled his previous high score which he had recorded in the inaugural match of 1st season of the IPL for Kolkata Knight Riders against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bangalore. McCullum, playing for Birmingham Bears achieved the score against the Derbyshire on Friday. The match was marked as McCullum’s debut at home ground for the Bears.

Bears’ captain, Varun Chopra walked out to open with McCullum as he lost the toss and Derbyshire asked them to bat first. Brendon McCullum didn’t get the strike in first 3 overs with Chopra doing the damage. However, 4th over bowled by White sent the warning bells as McCullum struck a couple of fours and a a huge six to collect 18 runs from it. He smashed a six each in following overs and finished the six overs powerplay by hitting a couple of boundaries on last 2 balls as they ended with 74 without any loss.

With a single in 8th over bowled by Durston, Bazz brought up his fifty in 23 balls. He became more dangerous after that, as he sent the ball twice into the stands in Durston’s next over. McCullum was seen playing the Dil Scoops very often in this innings as he gained a couple of boundaries behind the wickets. With help of a six in the 11th over and a couple of fours in 12th, McCullum entered into 90s.

He struck 2 sixes in space of 4 balls in the following over bowled by Alex Hughes and got to his century in just 42 balls, taking merely 19 balls for the 2nd fifty. It was his 7th century in T20 format, only 8 behind Chris Gayle who has scored most centuries in this shorter format of the game. Chopra, who brought up his fifty in 12th over in 37 balls with a single, got out by holing out of Wayne White’s first ball in the 14th. His innings of 51 runs brought an end to an amazing partnership of 160 runs which came in just 13.1 overs.

In between 13th and 18th over, Brendon faced only 11 balls but scored 29 runs with help of a four and 3 sixes. He survived an LBW shout while trying to scoop but the Umpire wasn’t convinced enough to give him out as it was going down the leg. With three fours in penultimate over, McCullum reached 150 run mark in just 60 balls as he took only 18 balls from 100 and 150. With that, he became the only the 2nd player to score two scores of 150 plus in Twenty20 Cricket.

McCullum extracted another boundary in last over and managed to run 2 on last ball to finish on 158, leading Bears to a huge total of 242 for 2. McCullum’s innings contained 13 fours and 11 sixes which means he scored 118 runs in boundaries out of 158 runs he scored in total.

Interestingly, even during his 158* innings in IPL, McCullum scored 118 runs in boundaries with 10 fours and 13 sixes, which is jointly the 5th highest in list of most runs scored in form of boundaries by a batsman in a T20 innings. Also, Brendon McCullum’s 158* is now the highest individual score in Natwest T20 Blast history and also the T20 record on England soil (Better say outside India) as he overhauled Luke Wright’s 153* which he scored in Chelmsford for Sussex against Essex in 2014.

Despite a good start by the openers, Derbyshire got all out in 19.4 overs for 192 runs to lose the game by 60 runs.

Also Read – Top 10 Batsmen with most centuries in T20s