WI vs SL | 1st T20I: Kieron Pollard hits six sixes in one over, Akila Dananjaya takes hattrick

Kieron Pollard has hit six sixes in an over and became the only second batsmen to hit all balls of an over the fence in international T20 cricket after Yuvraj Singh. He smashed Sri Lanka’s spinner Akila Dananjaya to all parts of the ground in the sixth over of the first T20I between Sri Lanka and West Indies at Coolidge.

He became only the third batsmen in international cricket to hit as many sixes in one over after Harshelle Gibbs and Yuvraj.

Interestingly, Dhananjaya had taken a hattrick in his previous over dismissing Evin Lewis, Chris Gayle and Nicholas Pooran on three consecutive deliveries in the third over of the West Indies.

West Indies were chasing a target of 132 runs from 20 overs which could well have appeared a modest one for the abundance of firepower the hosts had in their dugout. They started their efforts in the chase on an explosive note as Evin Lewis took Angelo Mathews to the cleaners and hit three back to back sixes. The opening pair of Lewis and Lendl Simmons was up and running with the chase before Dananjaya broke the backbone of the hosts with the hattrick.

The hosts were ahead in the game on the basis of the required run rate, but the hattrick put them under pressure. Pollard made up his mind to dismiss Sri Lanka and their chief weapon in Dananjaya out of the ground for as many as six times in an over to bring West Indies back in the game.

Hasaranga de Silva tried his best with two big wickets of Pollard and Fabian Allen in the seventh over, but there was not much left for the hosts to be worried about after Pollard’s onslaught and the combination of Jason Holder and Dwayne Bravo showed no signs of nerves and Holder ended the game with a big six to lead West Indies 1-0 up in the series.

Earlier, West Indies skipper Pollard had won the toss and decided to bowl first at the Coolidge. It was the first international game in the Caribbean islands after the Covid-19 pandemic and the hosts appeared to be in mood to test what could well be their best XI in the World T20 scheduled for later this year.

After a triumph by the team in Bangladesh by young guns in Tests, Windies welcomed the old guards in Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard in the shortest format. Most interesting of them all was the return of Fidel Edwards who played his first game for the country in more than eight years.

Pollard started West Indies innings with an off-spinner in Kevin Sinclair while a 39-year-old Edwards was trusted to do the job from the other end.

Sri Lanka’s openers Niroshan Dickwella and Danushka Gunathilaka started the innings on a cautious note, but a brilliant catch from Pollard saw the back of Gunathalika in the third over.

Pollard introduced Jason Holder in place of Edwards as the new man in Pathum Nissanka walked out to the middle at the number three position. Edwards returned from the end Sinclair was bowling and both he and Holder squeezed the tourists for runs for a couple of overs before Nissanka broke through the shackles against Holder.

Nissanka did not stop there and Obed McCoy and Sinclair who return for his second spell were despatched to boundaries. Dickwella too tried to break the shackles with his signature pick-up shot towards the square leg boundary. But his heroics was to be short-lived and was dismissed in a bizarre manner while attempting to sweep Holder.

Wickets kept falling at regular intervals and when the stand-in skipper Angelo Mathews and the senior-pro Dinesh Chandimal were dismissed in the space of three balls, hopes started fading for the tourists.

De Silva and Thisara Perera had the task of taking the tourists to a challenging total, but the McCoy and Bravo were deceptive with their slower balls to put any hopes of a Lankan revival to rest.

Two run-outs in the last overs was the fitting end of Sri Lanka’s batting efforts in the first T20 and they are now training the series 0-1, with only two more games to go.