South Africa’s Pretorius smashes Gayle’s T20 cricket record score

South African Lhuan-dre Pretorius hit 50 in 24 balls, needed 16 more to reach 100 and took another 18 to hit 150.Lhuan-dre Pretorius hit 188 not out off 79 deliveries in Bloemfontein to break Chris Gayle’s record score in the T20 format.Playing for the Titans against the Knights in the South African CSA Challenge, the 20-year-old left-hander opened the batting and hit 13 sixes and 14 fours in his innings to surpass Gayle’s 175 for Bengaluru in the Indian Premier League in 2013.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4‘Unstoppable’ Rumesh revives Sri Lanka’s glory, one javelin throw at a timelist 2 of 4‘Source of anxiety’: Pakistan cracks down before march to free Imran Khanlist 3 of 4‘Disgraceful’: Did India bully umpires to win Japan T20 cricket match?list 4 of 4India’s Mandhana breaks T20 record in Asian Games cricket semifinal winend of listPretorius reached 50 in 24 balls, needed 16 more to get to his century and took another 18 to hit 150.Gayle scored his 175 off 66 balls, striking 17 sixes and 13 fours.The 20-year-old has represented South Africa in all three international formats. He was making his first Titans appearance of the season after scoring 226 total runs, tied for most with Dewald Brevis, in a three-nation series in Namibia in September.On Friday, he dominated the strike, facing the equivalent of more than 13 overs to tie Australians Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis for the most balls faced in a T20 innings.The second-highest scorer was Sinethemba Qeshile with 14 as the Titans finished on 267-3.They then bowled out the Knights for 143 to win by 124 runs.The Titans total was the second-highest in the competition’s history, behind their 271 also against the Kings in 2022. In that match, Brevis hit 162, until Friday, a competition record. This time he made seven.The Cricinfo website calculated that in 91 T20 games, Pretorius has a strike rate of 150.44.