Like most debutants do, Dawid Malan let the first delivery he faced in international cricket watchfully go to the keeper. The next ball hardly saw any jitters of a batsman playing his first match, for he effortlessly pulled it to deep midwicket, thereby marking his arrival at the highest level.
His blazing innings of 78, off just 44 balls, against South Africa, has made the world suddenly sit up and take notice of the 29-year-old left-hander, who made his debut for England in style, maybe a tad late considering all that he has achieved in the same format at the domestic level.
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Here are some interesting facts about England’s latest T20 star:
His half century was the highest score by an Englishman on T20 debut, and their 11th highest score of all time in the shortest format.
He shot to fame in 2008, as a 20-year-old, when he blasted an unbeaten century at No. 6 for Middlesex in a T20 quarter-final against a Lancashire attack that had Andrew Flintoff, Dominic Cork and Glen Chapple.
He was born in Roehampton, sharing his birthplace with Hollywood actress Emily Blunt of The Devil Wears Prada and Edge of Tomorrow.
His father and brother have both played first-class cricket (four matches each), for the Northerns (South Africa) and the Loughborough Marylebone Cricket Club University respectively.
His father, (also called Dawid), soon moved him to South Africa, where he was born and brought up. He did his initial schooling from the same school as his father in Paarl.
He represented Boland, a team based in the Western Cape Province of South Africa (2005-06) and MCC Young Cricketers (2006).
He played for the Peshawar Zalmi in the inaugural season of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) and returned to play the second season as well. He was part of the select group of foreign cricketers who agreed to play the final despite a lingering security threat.
He holds the record (along with Kenyan international Rakep Patel) for the highest score when batting at the No. 6 position (103).
He struck an unbeaten 185 from 126 balls, which is a record for Lions or England A in List A cricket, usurping the 168 scored by Ravi Bopara against Windies A seven years back.
Against Sussex in 2015, he scored 115 off 64 balls at Hove, damaging a parked Ferrari’s roof outside the stadium with one of his three huge sixes.
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