Nepal’s batter Dipendra Singh Airee scripted history after he hammered a nine-ball fifty in the opening encounter of the men's cricket event at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou on Wednesday. He played the knock of unbeaten 52 runs in just 10 balls and also broke former India player Yuvraj Singh's 16-year-old record. Yuvraj scored fifty in 12-balls in the 2007 T20 World Cup against England.
Dipendra’s outstanding batting helped Nepal to post a huge total of 314-3 against Mongolia. The Nepal-based batter started his innings by hitting five consecutive sixes to reach 30 runs in just five deliveries before a double broke his flow. He then followed it up by smashing three more consecutive sixes to bring up his fifty and script a new record.
The Nepal team under the leadership of Rohit Paudel were moving ahead at a decent strike rate at the beginning and were stationed at 66-2 in the eighth over before the gears changed. Batter Kushal Malla also collected the fastest T20I century in history by reaching the three-figure mark in just 34 deliveries. He ended up playing an unbeaten innings on 137 runs off 50 deliveries with the help of eight fours and 12 sixes.
The pair of Dipendra and Kushal also went on to add 55 runs for the fourth wicket off just 11 deliveries, powering Nepal to become the first team to cross the 300-run mark in T20Is.
Squads:
Mongolia: E Buyantuguldur, M Altankhuyag, N Naranbaatar, T Sumiya, A Gan-Erdene, B Batikhuyag, B Namsrai, B Terbish, T Turmursukh, E Otgonbayar (wk), E Munkhbat (wk), O Lutbayar (wk), B Batsukh, L Erdenebulgan, R Batmunk.
Nepal: Rohit Kumar Paudel (c), Sundeep Jora, Kushal Bhurtel, Pratis GC, Bibek Yadav, Dipendra Singh Airee, Kushal Malla (wk), Asif Sheikh (wk), Binod Bhandari (wk), Karan KC, Gulshan Kumar Jha, Lalit Rajbanshi, Sompal Kami, Sandeep Lamichhane, Abhinash Bohara.