England Test Captain Ben Stokes became the third batsman in Test cricket history to hit 100 sixes in test cricket during the third match against New Zealand at Headingley on Friday.
In his 151st Test innings, Stokes accomplished the mark by hitting a six off a Tim Southee’s ball.
Brendon McCullum, a former Kiwi captain and current England Test format coach, tops the record with 107 sixes. Adam Gilchrist, who has hit 100 maximums from 96 tests, is in second place.
While the destructive Chris Gayle is on fourth place with 98 sixes and Jacques Kallis on fifth with 97 sixes.
During the game, Jonny Bairstow, a teammate of Stokes, became the 24th English player to reach 5000 runs in Test cricket.
One more record in the same match:
The match witnessed another record, this time from the visitor’s side. All-rounder Daryl Mitchell and wicketkeeper-batsman Tom Blundell have added 611 runs to the total during the same match, which is the most partnership runs for New Zealand in a Test series.
For their side, Mitchell-Blundell put on another impressive performance. The pair set up a stand of 120 runs when NZ was struggling at 123/5, and Blundell was eventually bowled for 55 by pacer Matty Potts.
With this, the pair has surpassed the mark set by Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones in 1991 against Sri Lanka, when they combined for 552 runs across two innings.
Mitchell not just stopped there, he also made history by being the first New Zealander to hit three straight centuries against England in tests.
In the first innings, the Mitchell played a responsible knock of 109 off 228 balls.
The star all-rounder from New Zealand became the fourth player in the twenty-first century to score a third straight century while on a tour of England. With his outstanding batting, Mitchell has joined Indian legend Rahul Dravid (2002, 2011), Pakistan’s Mohammad Yusuf (2006), and Australian Steve Smith (2019) in the elite list.
Mitchell has been in incredible shape throughout the series so far. Mitchell has a 482 run average over five innings and has average of 120.5 runs per inning. His bat has produced three hundreds and one half-century, with the highest total being 190.