Will Smeed, the youngest player in the men’s Hundred tournament at just 19 years of age, has made a huge impression on the competition. After his knock of 65 off 38 balls for the Birmingham Phoenix against the Welsh Fire on Monday night, his stock will only continue to surge.
Smeed combined timing with brute force to send the ball around the ground, shining particularly bright in tandem with the equally brutal knock of Moeen Ali earlier on in the innings. The Phoenix went on to post a daunting 184-5 off their 100 balls, the highest score in the Hundred so far.
Previously relatively unknown outside his county of Somerset, for whom he debuted under a year ago, Smeed has burst onto the scene with 146 runs in his first three Hundred games – an average of 49 – at a strike rate of almost 185. With an incredibly bright future now ahead of him, the Hundred has shown its ability to unearth new English cricketing gems.
