Ashutosh Sharma has surpassed Yuvraj Singh‘s previous mark for the fastest fifty by an Indian player. The middle-order batsman made the accomplishment during a Group C match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy between Railways and Arunachal Pradesh in Ranchi. In just 11 balls, he quickly reached his half-century.
The score was 131 for 4, and Ashutosh Sharma came to the crease to bat, with only five overs remaining.
Then, after hitting 12 balls, he scored 53, including one boundary and eight sixes. The Railways hitter was removed in the next ball after reaching his record-breaking half-century and returned with a staggering strike rate of 441.66. His sixes soared over the covers and the long-off zone on four occasions, the long-on on two, and the leg-side boundary behind square on two more occasions. Notably, his team scored 115 runs in just the final five overs to end with a commanding 246 for 5.
The 25-year-old was taking part in his second Twenty 20 game for Railways and tenth overall. On January 12, 2018, he played his first T20 match for Madhya Pradesh in the 2017–18 Zonal T20 League. He last played in the sport in 2019. He hasn’t yet participated in a first-class match and has only played in one 50-over match in 2019, also for Madhya Pradesh.
For those who don’t know, Yuvraj held the record for the fastest fifty in T20 cricket for 16 years before Dipendra Singh Airee from Nepal shattered it last month against Mongolia at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. In the first Men’s T20 World Cup, against England, in 2007, he scored a half-century in just 12 balls. The 41-year-old’s Durban knock, in which he hits six sixes in a single over off Stuart Broad of England, is also extremely well-known.