Pant breaks Kapil”s record

Flamboyant wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant on Sunday broke the legendary Kapil Dev’s 40-year-old record of fastest Test fifty by an Indian on the second day of the Day/Night match against Sri Lanka here.

The dashing left-hander cruised to his fifty in 28 balls (7×4, 2×6) in the 42nd over of Indian second innings when he hit a Praveen Jayawickrama delivery through the extra cover boundary.

India’s first World Cup-winning skipper Kapil Dev had cracked a 30-ball half-century against Pakistan in the Karachi Test in 1982.

‘Rishabh Pant surpasses Kapil Dev to score the fastest 50 by an Indian in Test cricket… Take a bow, Rishabh,’ posted BCCI in its Twitter handle.

Pant also set a world record for notching up the fastest fifty by a wicketkeeper-batter in Tests, bettering the efforts of Australia’s Ian Smith and former India captain MS Dhoni (both scored 34-ball fifty). Pant, however, could not make it big and got out in the same score and over, giving Jayawickrama a return catch in the final delivery.

0

0