Australia’s Sean Abbott breaks English T20 record with astonishing 34-ball century

Australian allrounder Sean Abbott has been left astonished by his own record-breaking exploits after equalling the fastest-ever hundred hit in English T20 cricket.

The Surrey player simply destroyed Kent’s bowling at the Oval in the T20 Blast competition, thundering to three figures in just 34 balls on Friday night to match the competition record set by his late, great compatriot Andrew Symonds for Kent against Middlesex 19 years ago.

Yet the modest Abbott, who has quickly become a popular figure with the county champions, paid tribute to one of Australian cricket’s old heroes afterwards, shrugging: “I don’t think people should be talking about me and ‘Roy’ in the same breath… but that was a lot of fun!”

It was an astounding knock which featured 11 sixes and seven fours, including 30 coming in the 17th over - 6-4-6-4-4-6 - off his luckless Australia pace colleague Kane Richardson.

Even more remarkably, the 31-year-old Abbott, who rescued a difficult situation for Surrey after coming in at 4-64, had previously never scored a fifty - his best had been 41 - in 76 T20 innings.

Instead, his 110 not out off 41 balls completely transformed the match, taking Surrey to 5-223 before they went on to limit Kent to 7-182 and seal a 41-run victory.

“Have to have a chat with Moises Henriques (his captain at the Sydney Sixers) back home - maybe I’m batting too low!” laughed Abbott, when asked on Sky TV about the transformation from a man who’d only made 51 runs in seven innings in the entire 2022-23 BBL.

“No, we’ve got a class side back home at the Sixers, so I can’t ask to bat too much higher. Just grateful for this opportunity,” said Abbott.

“This isn’t going to sink in for a while. First (Blast) game at the Oval in front of a home