T20 Blast: Australia's Sean Abbott on Friday produced a thundering knock in England's T20 Blast. The Aussie all-rounder smashed 110 runs off 41 balls in Surrey's 2nd match against Kent as he helped his side emerge victorious by 41 runs. Abbott created a record in T20 Cricket and also went past Indian star Rohit Sharma.
Abbott slammed the joint-fastest hundred in England's T20 Cricket and the joint fourth fastest overall as he hit a ton in 34 balls. He is now level with Aussie great Andrew Symonds in the list of fastest hundred in England T20 Cricket.
Abbott has also raced past Indian captain Rohit Sharma in the list of quickest tons hit in the shortest format of cricket ever. Sharma hit a hundred in the 20-over format from 35 balls in India's match against Sri Lanka in 2017. Notably, the fastest hundred in T20s belongs to Chris Gayle, who smashed a ton in 30 balls for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2013. India's Rishabh Pant is on second as he took 32 balls to reach the three-figure mark in Delhi's game against Himachal Pradesh in 2018. Wihan Lubbe scored a 33-ball hundred in T20 Cup Africa in 2018 for North West against Limpopo.
Talking about Abbott's ton, the Aussie all-rounder came in to bat when Surrey were in trouble at 66/4. He 11 sixes and four fours and raced to 110 off 41 balls. He made 28 off 17 balls and then went all guns blazing. Abbott amassed 30 runs in the 17th over of the innings as he smoked three sixes and three fours. He reached the milestone with a six in the 19th over.
Interestingly, before this inning, Abbott had not scored even a fifty in his T20 cricket. He played 76 T20 innings before this and had the highest score of 41. On being compared to Symonds, Abbott said, " “I don’t think people should be thinking about me and ‘Roy’ in the same breath."
