Truth is, it’s kind of highly unlikely, if not entirely impossible to see three separate centuries being struck in a single contest and that too, in the shortest form of the game that is T20 cricket.
While the possibility of doing great things with a sense of splendour and a real sense of occasion does make batters such a huge deal of attraction in this format of the game, it’s also a highly challenging thing at the end of the day to pull of big deeds with the bat in T20s.
And perhaps it’s a reason of great joy and amazing happiness for much of the sport itself that a great deed with the willow has just recently been pulled off by a certain Steve Smith.
You read that right.
Scoring his fastest ever century in the shortest form of the game, the talented and legendary right hander from New South Wales, Australia recently hit a wonderful 110 off just 48 odd deliveries and that too, in a run chase involving his Washington Freedom side that were up against a really demanding run chase being asked to chase 267, at the end of the day.
But after Nicholas Pooran lit the Oakland Coliseum park at Oakland with a sensational 31-ball-century, in a heroic effort of big hitting that led his team to a huge 267 run score, Steve Smith got into the act and got himself a century.
However, it wasn’t ever going to be easy as the iconic right hander was challenged by a very talented and serious bowling attack comprising names like- Shakib Al Hasan, Romario Shepherd and the great Trent Boult himself.
But utterly undeterred, Smith went for his shots and backed himself to go big in a must win contest and ended up scoring an unbeaten century.
It’s one thing, of course, to emerge with a three figure mark in the 20-over format of the game but something quite different and perhaps very difficult to emerge unbeaten which was the case with the former Australian captain.
In a blazing and courageous century that saw Smith compile 110 unbeaten runs, the magnificent talent struck no fewer than 9 sixes and ended up at an end with a brilliant strike rate of 229.
And it could be said that in a sense Smith’s valiance was the perfect foil to counter another brilliant century from his opposing camp; as in this very same contest MI New York’s Nicholas Pooran struck a 31-ball-ton, which was an exemplary batting effort in its own right and few can even discount that fact.
Props also to Andries Gous, the experienced campaigner from the United Stages of America, who also struck a brilliant century- a 132 off just 51 odd deliveries.
True to the spirit of the game being a team based sport, together Smith and Gous rallied hard and joined forces to take their Washington side over the ropes against a really challenging total.
Think about it- being asked to chase down 267 could really have been such an enormous task in itself, isn’t it?