Baroda’s batting lineup was on fire in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, putting Sikkim’s bowling attack to the sword as they piled on a scarcely believable 349/5 in their allotted 20 overs to make history as the team with the highest total in the history of T20s.
Played at the Emerald High School Ground in Indore, Baroda’s top order made best use of the small confines to attack Sikkim’s bowlers, who couldn’t really find answers to stop the run flow. The entirety of the top 5 for Baroda fired in style, taking no time to rack up the runs and allowing the team to bat at a strike rate of over 17 for the entire innings.
The star of the show was Bhanu Pania, who came in at number three and took only 51 deliveries to score 134 runs, in an innings which included 15 sixes. Pania remained not-out throughout the innings, stitching together strong and rapid partnerships with the batters around him and making the most of a fast start.
Three other batters reached the half-century mark, doing so in double-quick fashion: Abhimanyusingh Rajput, Shivalik Sharma, and Vishnu Solanki all reached and got out in the 50s, but all three batted at a strike-rate comfortably over 300. Baroda crossed 100 within the powerplay, 200 in just the 11th over, and 300 in the 18th over.
Despite Hardik Pandya not playing this match and Krunal Pandya not coming out to bat, Baroda’s forces broke a host of records in Indore. They overtook Punjab’s record of 275 against Andhra last year to become the team with the highest SMAT total, while also breaking Zimbabwe’s record of 344 runs set against Gambia in a lopsided T20I match against Gambia this October.
They became only the third team to cross the 300 mark in a qualifying men’s T20, overtaking Zimbabwe and Nepal, but fell agonisingly short of becoming the first team to set 350 in a T20 innings — a number which was considered impressive and nearly insurmountable even in ODIs once upon a time.
Baroda also shattered the recently-set record for the highest T20 innings total on Indian soil, with the national team having hammered 297 against Bangladesh earlier this year in Hyderabad. Unsurprisingly, Baroda also had the most sixes in one innings, managing 37 in Indore — almost one six every three balls in a display of true carnage.
