New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill hammered 102 off 38 balls to be the joint-fourth fastest T20 century scorer, as Worcestershire routed Northamptonshire by nine wickets in English county cricket’s Twenty20 Blast on July 27 (Friday).
On the way to the milestone, Guptill became joint fourth to the fastest T20 centuries in just 35 balls. Martin Guptill struck 12 fours and seven sixes, to get into his stride.
However, Chris Gayle still holds the record of scoring the fastest century off 30 balls for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL. India’s Rishabh Pant finds himself on the second spot smashing one off 32 balls against Himachal Pradesh.
Australia’s Andrew Symonds holds the third spot, as he smashed one off 34 balls against playing for Kent.
However, the fourth spot is occupied by four batsmen namely, LP van der Westhuizen, Rohit Sharma, David Miller, and Martin Guptill.
Meanwhile, chasing a target of 188, Worcestershire had a cakewalk victory with seven overs to spare. Martin Guptill along with Joe Clarke (61* off 33) put on a 162 run stand in just ten overs.
The right-hander took the attack in a Richard Gleeson over that cost 22 runs. Guptill flicked one over midwicket for six, two hits down the ground for four and a flick wide of the short fine leg.
South Africa’s Rory Kleinveldt replaced Gleeson, and he too gave up an over costing 22. As a result, Guptill went to fifty off 20 balls.
Later, he drove Prasanna over long-on for six and wide of long-off for four, as Guptill went to 90 before Kyle Coetzer was straight driven for four and flicked over midwicket for six to bring up the batsman’s century.
But trying to lift Gleeson over mid-on, he gave a simple catch to Josh Cobb. Martin departed scoring 102 runs to be the joint fourth fastest T20 century scorer. However, the match was already in the pockets by then.