Video: Fastest fifty in Test cricket - in just 24 balls!
The record for the fastest half-century in Test cricket belongs, quite unusually, to Jacques Kallis. After all, the South African all-rounder was not the batsman you’d associate with demolishing batting and attacking hits, especially in Test cricket. But such was the mismatch, the 2-Test series in 2004-05 in South Africa between the hosts and Zimbabwe.
The tone was set on the first day of the series itself in Cape Town, with Zimbabwe dismissed for 54, which was their all-time lowest score in Tests at that time, by an attack comprising Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini and Jacques Kallis. Pollock and Ntini took 3 wickets each, while Kallis took 4.
Coming out to bat in the 2nd session of the day itself, South Africa scored at a breakneck speed, with captain Graeme Smith getting his hundred at more than run a ball and AB de Villiers missing the three-figure-mark by just 2 runs. When Kallis came to the crease at No. 4, the hosts were already leading by 180 runs and he had the license to go for the big shots. What followed was complete carnage, as Kallis hit the fastest fifty in Test cricket.
Watch the rare footage of the match, courtesy YouTube legend Rob Moody:
Zimbabwean leg-spinner Graeme Cremer took the most beating on the day, but got some reward for persisting by claiming all 3 wickets to fall in the innnings. His 9 overs went for 86 runs.
Captain Smith had promised before this series that South Africa would focus on winning “quickly rather than hugely”, and he declared the innings overnight with a lead of 286 runs. Zimbabwe were all out for 265 the next day and hosts completed an innings win in 2 days. The next Test was marginally ‘better’ for Zimbabwe, if you can say that, as they managed to push the result by one more day, skittling out to an innings loss in 3 days.