Kusal Perera smashes fastest half-century of 2023 World Cup
Sri Lankan opener Kusal Perera played a breathtaking knock against New Zealand in Match 41 of the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup in Bengaluru. He played a series of delightful shots and hammered the fastest fifty of the ongoing tournament, off just 22 balls. He ended up scoring 51 off 28 balls, a knock laced with nine boundaries and two maximums. Here is more.
A fiery knock from Perera
Batting first in Bengaluru, SL suffered a top-order collapse as Trent Boult breathed fire with the new ball. However, Perera backed his attacking approach and slashed hard on almost every delivery. At the time of his dismissal, SL were 70/5 and 51 of those runs belonged to Perera. Speedster Lockie Ferguson brought an end to his thunderous knock.
Fastest fifty in the competition
Perera reached his fifty off just 22 balls, the fastest in the ongoing tournament. He displaced Kusal Mendis and Australia's Travis Head at the top, who took 25 balls apiece to get the milestone against South Africa and Pakistan, respectively. Perera slammed the joint-second fastest WC fifty by an SL batter, joining Dinesh Chandimal. Angelo Mathews (20 balls versus Scotland, 2015) tops this list.
Here are his WC numbers
This was Perera's fifth half-century in ODI WCs as he has now raced to 449 across 16 games at 28.06. He strikes at 107.93 in the tournament. 149 of his runs have come in the ongoing tournament at 24.83. This was his second fifty in the 2023 WC, having hammered 78 against Australia last month.
Perera has over 3,200 ODI runs
Perera has been a vital cog in Sri Lanka's batting line-up of late. He made his debut in the format a decade ago against Australia in Adelaide. Perera now has 3,237 runs from 116 ODIs at an average of 30.53. The tally includes six tons and 17 fifties. Against NZ, Perera owns 229 runs from six innings at 38.16 (100: 1, 50: 1).
