De Villiers hits maximum sixes in a World Cup

ELLINGTON: South Africa skipper AB de Villiers on Thursday broke yet another record as he bludgeoned his way to the highest number of sixes, 20, in a single edition of the cricket World Cup. He broke former Australia left-handed opener Matthew Hayden’s record of 18 sixes in the 2007 edition. The swashbuckling right-hander also holds the record for the maximum sixes in the quadrennial event (36) taking all the editions into account. Two-time Australian World Cup winning captain Ricky Ponting is second on the list with 31 sixes to his credit. Though de Villiers missed out on the first two innings in this year’s event, hitting only one over the fence, he latched onto the bowlers in his third match against the West Indies where he clubbed eight sixes en route to his 162 not out. In the next encounter against Ireland he again hit two sixes but got out for 24. On March 7 in their contest at Auckland versus Pakistan, he hit five sixes and scored 77.