News Sports Cricket 20-year-old Rishabh Pant scripts history with fastest ton in Ranjhi Trophy

20-year-old Rishabh Pant scripts history with fastest ton in Ranjhi Trophy

After he wasn’t picked up for India A's tour of Australia earlier this year, the young wicketkeeper-batsman from Delhi vowed to score tons of runs in the upcoming season. "I was hurt after not being

Rishabh Pant hits fastest Ranjhi hundred Rishabh Pant hits fastest Ranjhi hundred

After he wasn’t picked up for India A's tour of Australia earlier this year, the young wicketkeeper-batsman from Delhi vowed to score tons of runs in the upcoming season.

"I was hurt after not being picked for India A's tour of Australia. I then promised myself that I should be scoring so much runs that no one can ignore me," the stockily built Rishabh Pant had then said.

Months later, the heartbroken 20-year-old first hit a triple hundred against Maharashtra and has now batted himself into the record books as he struck the fastest ever hundred by an Indian in a first-class game by hitting a 48-ball ton against Jharkhand in a Ranji Trophy encounter today.

Pant was finally dismissed for 135 off only 67 balls with eight boundaries and 13 sixes in a game played at Thumba in Kerala.

He has had a staggering season so far having scored 799 runs from seven innings at an astounding average of 133.16 and a strike-rate of 113.17 -- something unheard of over a period of time. This is his fourth hundred of the season. He had already hit 44 sixes this season from 5 games.

His sequences of scores this season are 146, 308, 24, 9, 60, 117, 135.

En route his record breaking ton, Pant eclipsed a 28-year old record set by former Tamil Nadu opener VB Chandrasekhar, who reached the three-figure mark in 56 balls against Rest of India during the Irani Cup match of the 1988-89 series.

Incidentally, that knock helped Chandrasekhar greatly as he made it to the Indian team for the tour of New Zealand in 1990.

In the list of all first-class cricket across the globe, late Australian cricketer David Hooks smashed the fastest hundred off 34 balls during a Sheffield Shield match in 1982.

He was playing for South Australia against Victoria at the Adelaide Oval.

The 20-year-old Pant had hit an 82-ball hundred in the first innings and scored 117 off 106 deliveries.

Today, he came in at the score of 214 for 3 but Delhi were trying to play out the day having taken a lead of 65 runs with seven wickets in hand.

But Pant started in whirlwind fashion and was severe on both left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem and off-spinner Sunny Gupta as most of the sixes came off these two spinners.

Most of his 13 sixes were hit in the arc between long-on and long-off as he repeatedly danced down the track to attack the spinners.

 

Pant also had a few promising knocks for Delhi Daredevils during the last IPL including a man of the match award-winning effort.

The young lad has now made it extremely difficult for selectors to overlook him who were earlier looking at grooming Sanju Samson as Dhoni's understudy in limited-overs cricket.