Stats: Nottinghamshire's Riki Wessels scored a 18-ball 55 with nine sixes in the T20 Blast

Nottinghamshire opener Riki Wessels powered his team to a win while chasing a target of 192 set by Worcestershire in the T20 Blast fixture on Sunday at the New Road in Worcester. The opening batsman made full usage of the field restrictions as he scored 55 in just 18 balls with nine boundaries; all being sixes. His got out having done enough damage as the visiting side was 72/2 in 4.4 overs. Contributions from middle-order batsmen saw Notts chase down the target with five wickets and 11 balls to spare.

Wessels got going with a six in the first over bowled by Andy Carter and struck three more maximums in the 3rd over off Carter despite losing the wicket of Alex Hales. He struck back to back sixes off Wayne Parnell in the next over as Nottinghamshire crossed 50 by the 4th over. Wessels brought up his fifty off 17 balls with three consecutive sixes on the first three balls from Patrick Brown. However, he got out on the very next ball which brought an end to his breezy 18-ball 55.

Wessels’ 17-ball fifty is the joint 2nd fastest fifty in Twenty20 cricket by a Nottinghamshire player. Alex Hales in 2010 and Daniel Christian in 2016 hit 16-ball fifties for the Notts. Wessels hit a 17-ball fifty also in the 2016 T20 Blast while his opening partner Michael Lumb cracked one in the same season. His balls/sixes ratio of 2 in this innings is the best for any player who faced more than 15 balls in a T20 inning.

54 runs out of the 55 Wessels scored in the innings came via the nine sixes he hit. The 98.18% of runs Wessels produced were in boundaries which is the 2nd highest percentage in a T20 inning of 50+ runs. Ross Taylor scored all his 66 runs in boundaries when he played for Central Districts against Otago in the 2005/06 New Zealand Domestic T20 Competition. Wessels now also holds the record for hitting most sixes in a Twenty20 innings without a four.

The Nottingham player is also the first to hit more than seven sixes in a T20 innings without a four. As many as nine players before Wessels hit seven sixes without hitting a four in a T20 inning. First of them was recorded way back in 2005 by Suresh Perera in Sri Lanka’s domestic T20 tournament. Three such instances were recorded in 2017 including two in the IPL when Nitish Rana and Sanju Samson played quick-fire innings during 200+ chases.

Most sixes in a Twenty20 innings without hitting a four:

(Stats as on August 13, 2018)

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