Worcestershire Rapids batsman Martin Guptill has been awarded the Walter Lawrence Trophy after scoring the fastest hundred of the 2018 domestic season.
The New Zealand opener smashed a 35 ball century in the Vitality Blast match against Northamptonshire Steelbacks at Wantage Road on July 27.
Worcestershire CEO Matt Rawnsley collected the Walter Lawrence Trophy on Guptill’s behalf at the presentation dinner held in the Long Room at Lord’s.
Guptill’s innings is the fastest century from balls faced in the history of the competition, which began including limited-overs innings in 2008. His hundred is the second fastest in domestic T20 games, one delivery short of Andrew Symonds’ 34-baller in 2004, and the joint-fourth fastest T20 century of all time.
His fourth domestic T20 hundred came off 12 fours and six sixes and propelled Worcestershire to a nine-wicket victory with 41 balls to spare.
Reflecting on the innings Guptill admitted, “I had a slow start and didn’t even realise that I’d reached 50 till everyone started clapping, and I had to ask my partner, Joe Clarke, what had happened! Then to complete a century in 15 balls was pretty pleasing. It’s my quickest hundred by a long way, my previous fastest was in 49 balls for New Zealand against Australia earlier this year.”
Guptill is only the fourth batsman representing Worcestershire to win the award since its inception with the first being Graeme Hick in 1988 (79 balls, Worcestershire vs Surrey at The Oval), which was followed by Vikram Solanki in 2009 (47 balls, Worcestershire vs Glamorgan at New Road) then Tom Kohler-Cadmore in 2016 (43 balls, Worcestershire vs Durham Jets at New Road).
