3 records that Dipendra Singh Airee broke during his 10-ball 52* vs Mongolia in the Asian Games 2023
The opening fixture of the ongoing Asian games Men's T20I 2023 between Nepal and Mongolia saw the former record a thunderous win by 273 runs at Pingfeng Campus Cricket Field in Hangzhou on Wednesday, September 27.
Batting first, Nepal registered the highest-ever total in a T20I game when they scored 314/3 in their 20 overs.
Nepal, who recently contested in the Asia Cup 2023, completely tormented the Mongolian bowling attack and sent them to all corners of the ground.
No. 3 batter Kushal Malla scored a brilliant century in only 34 balls and remained unbeaten at 137 off 50 balls. Skipper Rohit Paudel also chipped in with a 27-ball 61 while Dipendra Singh Airee played a blinder of an innings and made 52* runs off only ten deliveries.
Dipendra made full use of the short boundaries in Hangzhou and thrashed eight lusty maximums in the ten balls he faced.
It was truly an immaculate cameo by Dipendra, who took a toll on a guileless Mongolian bowling unit. En route to his superb knock of 52*, Dipendra tumbled a slew of records. Here is a compilation of three such records that the Nepali batter broke against Mongolia on Wednesday.
#3 Highest strike rate by a batter (min 10 balls faced) in a T20 innings
Coming out to bat only in the 19th over of the innings, Dipendra Singh Airee wreaked havoc with his willow and took charge of the opposition right from the word go.
Exploiting the short boundaries, Dipendra hit 52* runs in the ten balls he faced and struck at a phenomenal rate of 520.00. His strike rate is now the highest ever among batters who have faced 10 balls or more in a T20 innings.
The record was previously held by Zimbabwe's Malcolm Waller, who made 43* off 10 balls at a strike rate of 430.00 in a Domestic Twenty20 Competition in 2016. In T20Is, Papua New Guinea's Norman Vanua held the record when he smashed at a strike rate of 391.66 (47 runs off 12 balls) against Vanuatu in 2019.
#2 First player to hit 6 sixes in his first six balls in a T20 match
It was indeed a special performance from Dipendra Airee, who also became the first-ever cricketer to smash six maximums while facing his first six deliveries in a T20I game.
Coming out to bat after 18.1 overs, the Nepalese all-rounder first faced two consecutive wide balls before smashing the five remaining balls of the over to five sixes. That particular over was bowled by Mungun Altankhuyag.
In the very next over, Dipendra dispatched another six to complete six sixes. He scored 36 runs off his first six balls and became the first individual to achieve the feat. Dipendra made 16 more runs in his next four deliveries.
#1 Fastest T20 fifty
Dipendra Singh Airee created history as he hammered the fastest-ever fifty in T20 cricket. He took a mere nine balls to complete the milestone, eclipsing Yuvraj Singh's long-standing record in T20Is. Yuvraj hammered a 12-ball fifty against England at the T20 World Cup 2007.
Chris Gayle and Hazratullah Zazai also made 12-ball half-centuries but both of these came in a T20 game.