When Wisden chose the best innings of the decade from 2010 to 2019, do you know who was chosen – the one in which the batsman played only 10 balls. There must be something special in it, that is why many experts even consider it as the best innings played in the T20 World Cup till date – surpassing Yuvraj's innings of 6 sixes in an over and 70 runs in the 2007 World Cup semi-final against Australia. Gave. From this, it will be easy to understand what kind of amazing batting happened. Let's see its record:

Played by: Carlos Brathwaite of West Indies

Balls : 10

Runs scored : 34* (1 four, 4 sixes)

Match: Final in Kolkata on 3 April 2016

It was the final of the 2016 T20 World Cup and Carlos Brathwaite's overall performance in the match was 3-23 with the ball and 34*(10) with the bat and it was this terror with the bat that turned a struggling West Indies team into champions.

Let's go straight to that final. West Indies won the toss and asked England to bat first and Brathwaite took 3 wickets including the wickets of Jos Buttler (36) and Joe Root (54), the two top scorers of the innings, giving away just 23 runs. Their score was 155-9 and West Indies needed to score 156 runs to win.

The score was 107-6 in 15.3 overs, so the favourites were England, not West Indies. Braithwaite came to play at number 8 and Marlon Samuels was present on the pitch. What happened after that was like an innings story and together these two took West Indies to the title.

This feat was achieved by Braithwaite who, before that final, had never scored 20 runs or taken more than two wickets in 14 international white ball matches in 5 years. In that final, he sensationally won the title for West Indies by bowling 3-23 in 4 overs and scoring 34 runs in 10 balls (24 of these in just 4 balls).

Then in the run chase, 49 runs were needed off 27 balls when he came in to bat and then 39 runs were needed off 21 balls when Brathwaite played his first ball. The best part was that a star batsman, Marlon Samuels (who was later named Player of the Match) was at one end and held the innings.

35 runs were needed from 16 balls when Braithwaite's shot over cover off David Willey (his record till then was 3.2-0-12-3) was fielded before the boundary and now 33 runs were needed from 15 balls. When 31 runs were needed from 13 balls, preparations for celebration had begun in the England camp and the title was rapidly slipping away from West Indies' grasp. From here the match turned and Braithwaite hit a brilliant 4 off the last ball of Willey's spell. West Indies was still in the match. Many experts give more credit to these 4 than all those 6s for the victory.

Now Chris Jordan bowled the 19th over – only 8 runs were scored in it and now West Indies needed 19 runs to win in the last over. Ben Stokes bowled the 20th over and the clear intention was to stop the runs – just like Jordan did in the previous over. Everyone knows that Jordan was an expert in death over bowling but Stokes was no less. What did such a big duty and stokes do? In front were – Braithwaite.

First ball – a poor leg stump half-volley and Brathwaite hits it straight to deep backward square for six.

Second ball – captain Morgan asked Stokes to bowl a yorker and Stokes failed to bowl one – another six was scored.

Third ball- Again Stokes did not bowl a yorker and once again 6 runs.

Fourth ball – It seemed that Stokes was hypnotized and he did not know how to bowl yorkers and Brathwaite's fourth consecutive 6 gave West Indies the trophy for the second time.

During the lockdown, in an interview, Stokes, while discussing that over, said- 'People think that I deliberately bowled four balls in the slot, but the truth is that every time I returned to my mark, I remembered to bowl a yorker.' Incidentally, in the few months of cricket before this, Stokes had practised bowling yorkers the most and he had full confidence in this talent of his. See- what happened?

This over took Braithwaite to a special place in cricket and this path led straight to superstardom. Braithwaite did not hide that these four consecutive 6s were not part of any scheme or strategy – he was really nervous. Before the start of that last over, Marlon Samuels had just said – hit hard, if it is a 6, it is fine, otherwise if the ball remains in the air and he is caught, then at least Marlon will get a chance to cross and finish the match. Ben did not listen to what he was told, but Braithwaite put in his best efforts in every 6. Especially he was not sure that the stroke of the fourth ball would be a 6 and the truth is that while celebrating the victory, Braithwaite came to know that this was also a 6, that is, sixes on 4 consecutive balls.

This innings changed Braithwaite's life. Incidentally, West Indies' Ian Bishop was on the mic in the commentary box and what he said at that time is always remembered in commentary. He jumped with joy and said – 'Carlos Braithwaite: remember the name.' There is a story behind his saying this. Two days before that final, he went to a friend's program and there he was asked – who could be the star of this final apart from Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo, then he immediately thought of Carlos Braithwaite (because he was bowling well in that World Cup and could also hit the ball) and he said – 'Carlos Braithwaite is a good all-round cricketer – remember the name. So Bishop remembered the same thing after that last six and said the same thing.

There is another story of this saying in sports. Football commentator Clive Till Dasley used this phrase 'remember his name' in 2002 while referring to 16-year-old Wayne Rooney. Rooney had then scored a goal from 30 yards in the last minute against a better team and the commentator then said about him – remember his name.

It is a different matter that Brathwaite remained the star of this innings and never reached such heights again in his career. He kept moving in and out of the West Indies team. Coincidentally, he was very close to showing similar feat once again in the 2019 Cricket World Cup. In a group match against New Zealand, he scored his first and last international 100 but West Indies fell 5 runs short of winning. Brathwaite has not played international cricket since 2019.

As for Stokes, this over was perhaps the beginning of his dark days – the following year he was arrested by the police in a fight outside a nightclub and charged with assault. He was eventually acquitted in the trial but due to this, he missed almost 5 months of cricket, which included the 2017–18 Ashes tour of Australia.