Nazir's Anti-Nadir

It’s hard to get to excited over a dashing ton in 2020 cricket.

There may be a lot of sixes and fours, but the batsman gets a license to swing away.

The game is designed for sixes, so when they happen they don’t have the same impact on you as a test six would.

It’s part of the reason that traditional cricket lovers aren’t fawning all over the game.

But today Imran Nazir shit all over that theory.

He hit 11 sixes in 44 balls on his way to 111* to win the ICL final final for the Lahore Badass Mother Fuckers.

Like Chris Gayle and Prince Brendan before him, he was so dynamic that even though the game was designed for him to do what he did, you didn’t care.

A six off the first ball over extra cover makes you forget about formats and average attacks and makes you sit back and gawk in geekish wonderment.

Had this been the first time you had seen Imran Nazir bat you would have been excused for thinking he was the best batsman of all time.

Had you seen him before you would have been excused for asking for a piss test.

I can’t really explain the innings for you.

You either saw it live, or you will never truly understand it.

You can get too carried away with the ICL form, like the commentators do, but the truth is hitting doesn’t get much cleaner than that.

And he was injured, this week has been a good time to be an injured batsman.

While Yuvraj’s innings had amazing shots, the two drives down the ground off Yorkers were amazing, he played himself in and then let go.

Nazir just exploded from ball one.

Few batsmen can do that.

And even less of them can do it like this.

The game was over at that point.

It was brutalism personified.

And as a spectacle would have been worth the admission several times over.

As a great knock, well it was in a second rate domestic tournament, but you can only beat the bowlers you face.

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