When England’s Dawid Malan scored a brilliant century against Bangladesh in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 match, his teammates surprised him with a cake facial. Malan scorched to an astounding 140 runs in just 107 deliveries, hitting his innings with a startling 16 boundaries and five sixes.
After their lackluster performance in the tournament opener against New Zealand in Ahmedabad, England had reason to celebrate Malan’s onslaught. Their happiness knew no boundaries, and as a sweet post-game surprise, Dawid Malan was welcomed to the team hotel with a cake facial. A little price to pay for reaching 140, wrote the official England Cricket Twitter account when sharing the moment.
A small price to pay for scoring 140 😂#EnglandCricket | #CWC23 pic.twitter.com/l6tM6hQKgF
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) October 10, 2023
The distinctive pattern of England opener’s innings added to the significance of his century. He needed just 39 balls to score his first 50 runs, but it wasn’t until he reached his second half-century that he really turned on the style. He needed 52 deliveries to get to the next 50, and he didn’t start accelerating until he reached the three-figure threshold.
Records abound as Dawid Malan scores his first World Cup century
The 36-year-old’s remarkable achievement was his first World Cup hundred, and he made history by being the eighth England opener to reach the coveted three-figure milestone in this illustrious 50-over World Cup. But he didn’t stop there; in just 23 innings, he made history by becoming the batter to score six ODI hundreds most quickly.
Only two other England batsmen have been able to record century during an Indian World Cup, thus this day will go down in cricketing lore. In Mumbai in 1987, the legendary Graham Gooch scored a stunning 115 against India to cement his place in history. Similar to this, Andrew Strauss cemented his status in 2011 by scoring an incredible 158 against India in Bengaluru.
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