Nepal's Yuvraj Singh: Meet Dipendra Singh Airee, third batter to hit six sixes in a T20I over

Nepal's Dipendra Singh Airee, the batter who has scored the fastest T20I fifty in history, on Saturday became only the third man to hit six sixes in an over in a T20I match. 

The right-handed batter, who is Nepal's versatile finisher, achieved the feat in the last over against Qatar in their ACC Men's Premier Cup match in Oman's Al Amerat. India's Yuvraj Singh and Caribbean Kieron Pollard are the only two other players to achieve the feat in the game's shortest format.

It was Qatar's seam bowler Kamran Khan who was at the receiving end of Airee's onslaught, ESPNCricInfo said in a report. The 36-run last over resulted in Nepal crossing the 200 mark and Airee registering a half-century. At the end of the penultimate over, the Asian side were 174-7 with Airee on 28 runs from 15 balls. The six sixes meant Nepal finished the innings 210-7 while Airee remained unbeaten on 64 from 21.

24-year-old Dipendra Singh Airee has played 60 T20Is and 55 ODIs for Nepal. The experienced campaigner is no stranger to explosive batting. When his teammate Kushal Malla went on to score a record-shattering 34-ball hundred against Mongolia during the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, Airee had also joined the party by hitting six consecutive maximums across two overs, the ESPNCricInfo report pointed out. The innings witnessed Airee reaching the 50-run mark in just nine balls -- the fastest T20I fifty to date. 

Iconic Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh was the first player ever to smash six maximums in an over. The famous innings came against England during the 2007 T20 World Cup. It was Stuart Broad, then a rookie, was was hammered by the stylish left-hander. Kieron Pollard also achieved the unique feat when he took on Sri Lanka's Akila Dananjaya in 2021. In the ODI format, South Africa great Herschelle Gibbs and USA's Jaskaran Malhotra have managed to do so against  Netherlands and Papua New Guinea respectively.