As a tactical decision, ‘retired out’ has been a regular occurrence in the last few years. But what happened this time, has never been seen before. For the first time in the history of T20 cricket, two retired outs have occurred in one innings.
This rare scene was seen in the match between Northern Districts and Otago in the New Zealand T20 tournament Super Spash. The match ended in a dramatic manner at Mount Maunganui on Sunday. Northern Districts tied the match with 18 runs in the last over.
Chasing a target of 167 runs, Northern Districts could score 109 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 16 overs. At that time, 58 runs were needed from 24 balls to win.
Slow batting Jeet Raval (23 from 28 balls) was then removed. When a batsman voluntarily leaves the field or is picked up without injury, it is called a ‘retired out’ in cricket terms. Raval was replaced by captain Ben Pomar, who hit a six off the first ball and a four off the fourth ball.
In the next over, another batsman, Xavier Bell (9 off 13 balls), was picked up and Scott Kuggeleijn was brought in to bat. He also hit a six off the first ball.
Pomar was out in the 19th over after scoring 20 runs off 10 balls.
19 runs were needed in the last over. Pacer Danru Ferns hit a ‘beamer’ early on, a ‘no’ ball. On that ball, Tim Pringle singled and gave Kuggeleijn a strike. He hit a legitimate four off the first ball. He took two runs off the next ball. No runs came on the third ball. Kuggeleijn hit two fours off the next two balls. They needed 3 on the last ball. Kuggeleijn could take 2 runs off a yorker delivery, the match was tied.
In this tournament, a Super Over is not played if any match is tied except the final.
The 34-year-old pace bowling all-rounder Kuggeleijn, who has played for New Zealand in all three editions, is unbeaten on 34 off 12 balls with 3 fours and 2 sixes.
The tie in the final over was a dramatic one, as was the retirement of two batsmen in one innings.
In 2022, two batsmen were retired in one match in England’s T20 tournament Vitality Blast, but not in the same innings. This was the experience of Carlos Brathwaite of Birmingham Bears and Samit Patel of Nottinghamshire in an eight-over battle.
With Raval and Bell, there are 67 instances of retirements in T20 cricket. Although it is now regular, it was not like this even a few years ago. Before 2022, there were only 3. There were 29 last year alone. Three in the first four days of this year. This was the experience of Nick Maddinson in the Big Bash in Australia on Saturday.
