Feb 20, 2016.An hour and 19 minutes, 54 balls, 16 fours, 4 sixes. A strike rate of 185.

In his final Test match, Brendon McCullum refused to go quietly. He had an atomic blast, pulverising the Australian bowling and bettering the existing record of the fastest hundred by 2 balls. It had stood for almost 30 years, set by Viv Richards in 1986. Since then it had been equalled by Misbah Ul Haq in 2014.

What made the Baz-blitzkrieg special was the lively nature of the Hagley Oval, where Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson had made the ball talk since morning. It was 32 for 3 when the skipper arrived and took the bowling by the proverbial scruff of the neck. Strokes flowed all around the ground, and poor Mitchell Marsh was dispatched for 21 in an over. Even the dismissal of Kane Williamson did not quite manage to slow down the exhilarating spate of hitting. Not all of them were off the middle, but the scoreboard hurtled along as if on a high dose of amphetamines.

By the time McCullum had brought up his hundred at the incredibly breakneck speed, New Zealand were 175 for 4 ...at a rate of 4.86. By the time he departed for 145, scored off 79 balls in just over two hours, the score was 253 in 45 overs.

Few have played Test cricket this way. Even fewer have left the stage with such a spectacular show of fireworks.

Text: Arunabha Sengupta

Illustration: Maha