It was incredible scenes at the Al Amerat Cricket Ground in Muscat, Oman as United States Of America’s Jaskaran Malhotra hit six sixes off six balls of Papua New Guinea’s Gaudi Toka to enter the elite club of international cricketers like India’s Yuvraj Singh, South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs and West Indies’ Kieron Pollard who have pulled off this feat before him.
Malhotra also went on to record the highest individual score for a USA batsman in ODI cricket as he reached to unbeaten 171 courtesy of the six sixes he hit in the last over of the American innings. It is interesting to note that the 31-year-old wicketkeeper batter Malhotra made his comeback into the USA squad after having last played an international game way back in 2019 against Namibia.
In fact, with his blitzkrieg of an innings, Malhotra also became the first and only USA batter to hit a century in any international format, he beat the previous best score of 96 by a US batter which was achieved by Aaron James against UAE in 2019.
Courtesy of his innings in which Malhotra hit four fours and 16 sixes, which is also the joint second-most by any batsman in ODI cricket, the USA reached a target of 271-9. He along with skipper Saurabh Netravalakar added 55 runs for the 10th wicket, another record for the US team. Malhotra’s 16 sixes equalled the record of modern greats of the game Rohit Sharma, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle.