Indian batter Gaikwad hits record 7 sixes in one over

Scores 42 runs in an over during unbeaten 220 for Maharashtra

Chennai Super Kings and India opener Ruturaj Gaikwad yesterday smashed an unprecedented seven successive sixes in one over of a 50-over domestic match — courtesy of a no-ball.

Gaikwad, who has played one ODI and nine Twenty20 matches for India and finished as the top run-getter in the Indian Premier League in 2021, hammered 42 runs for Maharashtra in a seven-delivery over against Uttar Pradesh.

The quarter-final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy — India’s inter-state 50over competition — took place at the world’s biggest cricket stadium, in Ahmedabad.

Gaikwad is the first player to hit seven sixes in one over in a List A category match.

But Lee Germon of New Zealand holds the all-time List A record with eight sixes in a bizarre 77-run over of multiple deliberate wides and no-balls in a 1990 Shell Trophy match, when Wellington intentionally gave away runs to try to tempt Canterbury into recklessness.

Gaikwad, 25, finished unbeaten on 220 as his team made 330-5.

Sterling performance

Left-arm spinner Shiva Singh was on the receiving end of his six-hitting blitz in the 49th over.

Gaikwad made his T20 international debut last year after a sterling performance as an attacking opener with

Chennai.

It is the second record by an Indian batsman in as many weeks, after Tamil Nadu’s N Jagadeesan smashed 277 against Arunachal Pradesh, the highest ever score in the 50over format, surpassing the 268 of England’s Alistair Brown against Glamorgan in 2002.