Luke Wright's century steals off a stunner for Sussex in T20 blast

Luke Wright’s century steals off a stunner for Sussex in T20 blast: The Sussex all-rounder, Luke Wright took his side home with the help of a breathtaking innings against Gloucestershire at Bristol in a Natwest T20 Blast fixture. Wright scored an unbeaten century and took his side to victory in a last ball thriller. Despite of losing more than half the side and needing more than 15 an over in last 5 overs, Wright’s sensational knock powered his team to an amazing win from nowhere.

Chasing the target of 186 set by Gloucestershire, Sussex began their innings very poorly with Fuller’s double strikes in his first two overs reduced them to 13 for 2. However, Luke Wright and in form batsman Craig Cachopa tried to settle things for their side but Cachopa holed out for just 18. The Australian batsman George Bailey didn’t make his presence felt as he departed for just 13.

Wright kept the runs coming in, but the pace of his innings didn’t help the progress. Things got worse for Sussex as they lost 2 more wickets in quick succession. At 15 overs stage, Sussex were placed at 104 for loss of 6 wickets with another 82 runs needed in last 5 overs and Luke Wright at the crease with a score of 44 off 37 balls along with new batsman Oliver Robinson.

Then began the turn around from Luke Wright who started the 16th over bowled by Ton Smith with a six and struck a four on penultimate ball to yield 13 runs. 17th over from Noema-Barnett produced 21 runs with Wright striking 2 sixes in the first 3 balls and Robinson contributed with a four before the over ended.

When slowly Sussex’s hopes raised, 18th over bowled by Jack Taylor almost made a win for them impossible as he conceded just 5 runs in that over. James Fuller, who had a figures of 2-0-6-0 was brought to bowl the penultimate over.

Fuller started with a high full toss to Robinson which was called a No-Ball by the Umpire and Wright got back to the striker’s end as they completed 3 runs on it. He smashed a six on the 2nd ball and picked up a single on the following delivery. In view of returning strike to Wright, Robinson got out at the non-strikers end as Sussex lost their 7th wicket.

Wright kept fighting as he struck 2 sixes in consecutive balls off Fuller to bring the equation to 20 from 7 balls. Fuller yet again bowled a high full toss which was called as No-ball again and in meantime, Wright’s shot raced away for four. As Fuller bowled 2 beamers, he could’t finish his quota as a result Mills needed to finish the over and Wright didn’t bother who was the bowler and sent the ball into the stands to bring up his 5th T20 century and finished off the long lasted over which extracted 34 runs.

After a huge penultimate over, Sussex needed 9 runs in last over which was going to be bowled by Jack Taylor. Michael Yardy took a single off first ball and Luke Wright struck a boundary on second to equate the difference between the runs needed and ball remaining.

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The next two balls produced 2 singles and when two were needed from 2 balls, without wasting anytime, Luke Wright hit the ball through the boundary to pull off an amazing victory and finish unbeaten on nelson. Luke Wright’s innings off 111 came in 56 balls with help of 7 fours and 8 sixes.

During his innings, Wright recorded couple of stats as he became 13th player in overall and 2nd England player to reach 5000 runs in Twenty20 format. He also became only the 5th player to score 5 or more centuries in this T20 format.