Bipin Dani
Congratulatory messages have not stopped coming into Dipendra Singh Airee mobile. On Saturday, the 24-year-old middle order batter from Nepal smashed six sixes in the last over of his team’s batting and joined the elite club of India’s Yuvraj Singh and West Indies’ Kieron Pollard, who also did the same in the T-20 internationals.
Airee achieved this feat in the last over against Qatar in their ACC Men’s Premier Cup match in Al Amerat.
Speaking exclusively over telephone from Nepal, he said, “I was aware of Yuvraj and Pollard’s sixes, though had not seen their matches”.
Yuvraj Singh did it against the bowling of England’s Stuart Broad in Durban in the 2007 T20 World Cup and Kieron Pollard (off AkilaDananjaya in Coolidge in 2021). In ODI cricket, the six sixes feat in an over has been achieved by South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs and USA’s JaskaranMalhotra.
“During my innings against Qatar I remained calm and was focussing only on the match and was aware of the situation when our team total was 174 for 7 before the last over and I was doing my basics right. I was just thinking of contributing more runs to the team and total scores. On that way sixes keep on coming”, he said.
DipendraAiree’s family was not there at the ground to cheer for him. “Yes, my family members enjoyed my challenge as they watched the match on TV. Not only my family members but the entire nation and fans all over the world have been sending me messages now”.
When asked when he realized that he could hit all sixes in an over, the reply was : “After four successive sixes I came to know that I can make it into six sixes. No, the bowling of Kamran Khan was not weak either. He was bowling with the right speed and in the right direction but that was only his second over of Qatar team bowling but I was determined to score high”, he further added.
The batter Airee is, however, no stranger to scoring six consecutive sixes. He had achieved it once previously, but on that occasion six sixes were spreaded across two overs. That came during the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September 2023, against Mongolia.
