New Zealand pacer Lockie Ferguson did the unthinkable in his four-over spell, not conceding a single run as he took 3/0 to set a new world record in the T20 format against Papua New Guinea in the ongoing T20 World Cup match. Only one men’s bowler in history had ever bowled a full set of four overs without conceding a run – Canada’s Saad Bin Zafar against Panama in an international in 2021.
And Ferguson has become the second player to do so in history, and the first ever to do so at a T20 World Cup.
The 33-year-old pacer struck with his very first ball to remove Papua New Guinea captain Assad Valada for 6 (16), and tied up the new batter to open his spell with a maiden in the powerplay.
And he was understandably kept on to bowl the first over after the powerplay, once again keeping things tight with an excellent maiden.
He returned to the attack for the 12th over and picked up the wicket of Charles Amini 17 (25), and finished with his third wicket-maiden with the 14th over of the innings, cleaning up Chad Soper for 1(6).
There were celebrations and handshakes for Ferguson when he fielded the sixth ball of his fourth over off his own bowling to finish with four consecutive maidens and complete his historic achievement.
The Kiwis were successful in keeping the PNG batters quiet and pinned to their respective ends for the majority of their innings which folded in 19.4 overs, with the first half witnessing the ball racing to the ropes for boundaries only on four occasions.
Meanwhile,Trent Boult (2/14), playing in his last T20 World Cup match, began with a two-run first over but it was Tim Southee (2/11) who drew the first blood, getting PNG opener Tony Ura caught at deep backward point.
While there was no success for Boult in terms of wickets with the new ball, Ferguson struck on his very first ball to have PNG skipper Assad Vala caught at widish first slip for six.
Ferguson continued to trouble the opposition batters to such an extent that PNG could not score a run off his first three overs. The right-arm pacer had further success when he pinned Charles Amini (17) in front of the wickets successfully for the third wicket.
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Mitchell Santner (1/17) cut short the progress of Sese Bay (12), getting him caught by Finn Allen at long on after luring the batter to dance down the track and hit him but the connection was improper.
Having not conceded a run yet, Ferguson found an inside edge off Chad Soper's (1) bat crashing into the wickets after he recklessly dangled his bat which came down awkwardly away from his pads.
Ferguson finished his spell without having conceded a run and thus joined Zafar, who was the first to have bowled all four maidens in November 2021 against Panama in T20 World Cup Americas Region Qualifier.
Boult came back into the attack for his first wicket of the contest to clean up Hiri Hiri (7) while Southee bagged another in the next to remove wicketkeeper-batter Kiplin Doriga (5) out of the equation.
Having toiled for success in his first three overs, Ish Sodhi (2/29) grabbed a couple of wickets to wrap up the PNG innings in the last over.
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