Connolly's record 107 not out lifts him past de Kock and Warner as Punjab slip again
Cooper Connolly walked back to the Punjab Kings dressing room unbeaten on 107 off 59 balls on Wednesday night at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and into the IPL record book. Punjab still lost the game by 33 runs. They have now dropped three in a row. None of that quite captured what the 22-year-old Australian had just done.
Connolly is the youngest overseas batter to score a hundred in the IPL. At 22 years and 257 days he eclipsed Quinton de Kock, who held the record at 23 years 122 days from his 2016 century, and David Warner, who was 23 years 153 days old when he made his first. The previous mark had stood for just over a decade. It fell on a chase that was always running away from Punjab.
A first hundred in any format
It was Connolly's maiden IPL century. It was also his first hundred in any format, professional or otherwise. He got there in 57 balls and finished with seven fours and eight sixes. Punjab were chasing 236 and losing wickets at the other end almost from the start, so most of the innings was Connolly working out how to keep finding the boundary on his own.
The eight sixes are the most by a Punjab Kings batter aged 22, surpassing the seven Connolly himself struck against Lucknow Super Giants at Mullanpur earlier this season. He has been Punjab's most consistent run-scorer this campaign, with the franchise moving him up to bat at No. 3 after the side opened the year still working out how to use him.
Bahutule on the Connolly project
Punjab's spin-bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule was the one fielding questions about him after the loss. Bahutule has been around enough domestic and IPL dressing rooms to be careful with words, and he was direct about Connolly. He called him a team man, "a very good all-rounder in the making" and a "fabulous fielder" who has, in his read, the head to settle into a long Australian career.
The all-rounder framing matters. Connolly is a left-handed batter who bowls slow left-arm orthodox, and the Punjab coaching group still see him primarily as a top-order option who can give them four overs of spin when the surface helps. The IPL record book has now answered the batting half of that bet ahead of schedule.
Punjab's wider problem
The hundred sits in a strange spot for Punjab. They went into the match on top of the points table with 13 points from nine matches, but the loss has dropped them off the summit, and three consecutive defeats have started to expose the depth around their best performers. Heinrich Klaasen's 69 and Ishan Kishan's 55 had put the SRH innings out of reach, Punjab's catching dropped multiple chances, and the chase never really got going once early wickets fell.
Shreyas Iyer's group still control their own playoff path. The next two games will tell us whether this is a small wobble or the run-in that Punjab can't fix.
The argument for Australia
Connolly already has a small handful of Australia caps to his name across the white-ball formats, and he is contracted to Western Australia and Perth Scorchers at home. The IPL century, against an in-form SRH bowling group, is the kind of innings that builds the case for a longer run in the senior side.
Bahutule's read is that Connolly will play a long period for Australia. The 107 not out at Uppal, for now, is the loudest argument in that case.
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