Patel said. (Photo/Screengrab) NEW DELHI: CSK batsman Urvil Patel scored the second-fastest T20 century by an Indian in Gujarat’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2025 match against Services at Hyderabad’s Gymkhana Ground on Wednesday in a show of the highest order. Urvil smashed an unbeaten 119 off 37 balls in an explosive innings, hitting 12 fours and 10 sixes at a pace of 321.62. Interestingly, the wicket-keeper batsman registered the joint-fastest T20 century by an Indian just a year ago when he registered a 28-ball ton against Tripura on 27 November. Urvil shares the record for joint fastest ton with Abhishek Sharma who smashed a 28-ball hundred against Meghalaya in SMAT24 in December 20. Rishabh Pant previously held the unique distinction of being India’s second-fastest T20 centurion after his 32-ball ton against Himachal Pradesh in January 2018, but has now been relegated to third after Urvil’s onslaught. The wicketkeeper batsman went on to record the highest individual score by a Gujarati batsman in T20s. Urvil’s father Mukesh Patel expressed immense happiness after his son’s majestic knock and expressed his desire to see him into the national team soon.
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“I didn’t follow the score of the match as I usually don’t follow his games. But it fills me with great pride to see Urvil doing so well and putting up such a majestic performance. It’s time he was quickly included in the Indian T20I set-up with such quality performances. He deserves it,” Mukesh said during an exclusive interaction with TimesofIndia.com.Gujarat beat Services by eight wickets chasing a target of 183 runs in 12.3 overs after a 174-run opening partnership between Urvil and Aarya Desai (60 off 35 balls, 6 fours and 3 sixes). Aarya provided quality support and smashed the ball fearlessly with an excellent strike rate of 171.42.“Urvil and I know each other quite well. We have been opening the innings since the U-25 level and have had a few set-run partnerships, enjoying very clear mutual strengths and weaknesses. Before the match, we had confidence in each other due to Gujarat’s two consecutive wins in the previous matches and kept talking about playing positive cricket,” said Aarya.“The ultimate focus was to focus on the bowlers and not allow them to settle. We got 8 runs in the opening over followed by 18 runs in the second over which helped in building quality momentum and allowed us to bat freely from then on,” he added. Gujarat will face Bengal in their next match on Friday.
