It turns out the Volts were part of history in Mt Maunganui on Sunday night.
The Northern Brave made a surprise tactical move when they retired out two of their batters, veteran Jeet Raval and youngster Xavier Bell, who were struggling to get the scoreboard moving.
It nearly worked, too — their replacements, Ben Pomare and Scott Kuggeleijn, smashed some boundaries and took the Super Smash game to the final ball before it ended in a rare tie.
Cricinfo yesterday reported that marked the first time in the history of men’s T20 cricket that two batters were retired out in the same innings.
In the English county one-day competition in 2022, a game reduced to eight overs per side featured two retired outs — but Carlos Braithwaite and Samit Patel were playing for different teams.
Women’s cricket delivered the first instance of a team retiring out two or more batters in T20 cricket, and it was a doozy.
United Arab Emirates openers Esha Oza (113 off 55 balls) and Theertha Satish (74 off 42) had put on 192 for the first wicket in a T20 World Cup qualifier against Qatar in Bangkok in May last year.
Fearing bad weather would prevent them having enough time to dismiss Qatar, UAE called both openers back to the sheds and the eight subsequent batters walked out to the crease in pairs before retiring out without facing a delivery.
After retiring out all 10 batters — effectively declaring, a tool in long-form cricket that was removed from the limited-overs game in 1979 — UAE dismissed Qatar for 29.
