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ToggleThe wicket-keeper batter of the West Indies team, Nicholas Pooran has broken the old record of former opener Chris Gayle during their third game of the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 game against New Zealand at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba in Trinidad. The incident happened just during the second over of the encounter.
The Blackcaps came into the must-win game on the back of their huge defeat to Afghanistan in their opening fixture of the tournament at the Providence Stadium in Guyana. For the West Indies, the equation was quite simple. They had already earned successive victories over Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Uganda, and a victory in this game will qualify them for the ‘super-eight’ stage of the competition.
Winning the toss, Kane Williamson decided to bowl first on a surface that looked a bit dry underneath. In the very first over of the game, left-arm pacer Trent Boult drew the first blood with the wicket of Johnson Charles, as Nicholas Pooran walked into the middle.
Nicholas Pooran becomes leading T20I run-getter for West Indies
On his third ball, the left-handed aggressive batter used his feet to get a boundary. He was trying his best to keep on nailing the boundaries on every second delivery, but the tricky surface wasn’t allowing him to do so, which was used quite beautifully by the New Zealand seamers.
Nicholas Pooran slapped Tim Southee for another boundary over the cover region, before smacking the same bowler over mid-on for the same result. On the very next delivery, the hometown boy looked to whack the short ball, which went sky high before dying in the hands of the wicket-keeper Devon Conway.
But in this process, Nicholas Pooran wrote a new record, as he went past Chris Gayle’s 1899 T20I runs tally, to become the highest T20I run-scorer with 1914 runs in 91 games for the Maroon side.
Most runs for West Indies in T20Is
| Players | Innings | Runs | SR | HS | 4s | 6s |
| Nicholas Pooran | 83 | 1914 | 134.03 | 82 | 131 | 120 |
| Chris Gayle | 75 | 1899 | 137.50 | 117 | 158 | 124 |
| Marlon Samuels | 65 | 1611 | 116.23 | 89* | 144 | 69 |
| Kieron Pollard | 83 | 1569 | 135.14 | 75* | 94 | 99 |
When it comes to the 20-over formats, the wicket-keeper batter Nicholas Pooran has nailed 7052 runs in 308 innings at an average of 27.33 and a strike rate of 147.22, with a couple of centuries and 39 fifties, while on the other hand, Gayle has smacked 14562 T20 runs at a strike rate of 144.75 in 455 innings with 22 centuries and 88 fifties.
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When it comes to his form, Pooran is coming into the competition, fresh from his 499 runs in the IPL 2024 with the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). The West Indies put up 149/9 in their allotted 20 overs, with an unbeaten masterclass half-century from Sherfane Rutherford’s 68-runs in 39 balls.
It was a must-win game for the New Zealand team, who kept on losing wickets at regular intervals, were restricted to 136/9 in their 20 overs, and lost the game by 13 runs. For the West Indies, they will play their last game of the group stage in the ninth edition of the T20 World Cup on June 18, against Afghanistan at the Gros Islet in St. Lucia.
The ‘super eight’ encounters for the two-time champions will be on June 20, before they move to Bridgetown, Barbados on June 22, and take on South Africa on June 24, at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium in North Sound, Antigua.