The left-hander showcased a brilliant display of acceleration en route his 86.
Leave whatever you are doing! The game of cricket has given us yet another reason to be spellbound. Calicut Globstars batter Salman Nizar chose to put his foot on the accelerator, like no batter ever did. In a knock which turned things upside down in the matter of 13 deliveries, Nizar did not just steal the limelight. He was the limelight himself.
Until the 18th over of the first innings, everything was normal. The score was around the 120-run mark, which was pretty average. But that’s when Salman Nizar happened! The left-handed batter rose to the occasion to score a magnificent 86 off just 26 deliveries. He walked out unbeaten with 12 sixes in his arsenal. To add to that, his knock did not contain a single boundary.
At the 18th over mark, Nizar was batting on 17 off 13 deliveries. In the next 13 deliveries, he slammed 11 sixes to propel the team’s total past the 180-run hurdle. He made it look extremely easy on the eye, in a display of pure power-hitting. He scored 40 runs off the last over of the first innings. Eventually, the Globstars won the fixture by 13 runs against the Adani Trivandrum Royals.
12 sixes in an innings is not something a batter achieves every day. But today was special for the 28-year-old batter. In an interesting record, Nizar went past his Kerala teammate Sanju Samson for the most sixes in the Kerala Cricket League 2025 season. Samson, in four innings, has scored 285 runs with 21 sixes to his name. On the other hand, Nizar has tonked 28 sixes in six innings, 12 of which came today in a single match.
Nizar was one of the most prolific performers in the Ranji Trophy 2024/25 season for Kerala. He scored 628 runs in the season and played a crucial role in his team reaching the Final of the coveted Indian domestic tournament. His heroics included an unbeaten 112 and 42 in the quarter-final against Jammu & Kashmir. The left-handed composed batter brought out his most destructive game in the fixture.
While his red-ball numbers speak volumes about his ability to showcase temperament, Nizar has been no mug in the shortest format too. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in 2024, he averaged 56 and maintained a strike-rate of 164 throughout the tournament. He had attended the trials for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) previously, and he could find himself wanting, come the IPL 2026 auction.
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With prolific performances these days, it is hard for a player to go unnoticed. The amount of domestic leagues in India are on the rise. Multiple states have introduced a league of their own, and the hype is far from going down. Most importantly, these leagues are providing players with a vital opportunity to up the ante and showcase their skills in front of the world. And that is why Salman Nizar’s knock today might have done wonders.
Players with the expertise in one dimension are wanted by franchises. But players who can add another dimension to their game are proving to add a lot more to the team’s success. Nizar has showcased his ability to play according to the situation on multiple occasions. To add to that, today’s knock showed his capability to hit the long ball, which a lot of franchises would love to have. Nizar is basically a package which provides both stability and explosiveness, and teams would love to pounce on that.
Salman Nizar’s knock was more of destruction than just batting. It was power-hitting of the highest order. To change gears like this in the middle of an innings is a quality not many batters can master. And if Nizar can keep showing glimpses of his hitting abilities repeatedly, greater things might just be round the corner.
