Sese Bau becomes the first PNG player to score a World Cup fifty

Sese Bau may not be a famous name worldwide but he is a household name in Papua New Guinea (PNG) cricket. A left-handed middle-order batter (and a part-time off-break bowler), Bau began his journey in PNG cricket a day after his 23rd birthday, facing Afghanistan in Sharjah in 2015. 

Since then, Bau has played 109 international games for PNG - 57 ODIs and 52 T20Is. His average of 20.1 before this T20 World Cup was the fourth-best for a PNG player. He is among the small pool of four PNG players who have scored over 800 runs in both ODIs and T20Is. 

All eyes were on PNG as they marked their T20 World Cup debut on Sunday (June 2) against the West Indies. The co-host nation won the toss and opted to put PNG in to bat. The first few overs cleared the gulf between Associates and full-member nations as PNG trudged to 15/2 in four overs. 

There was an embarrassing debut in store, looking like the Oceanian team won’t cross the 100-run mark. The pitch was slow and West Indies had a number of restrictive spinners up their sleeves. At this point, Bau (5* off seven balls) was batting alongside another PNG stalwart, Assad Vala (5* off 10 balls). The latter was out on the last ball of the powerplay. However, Bau dropped an anchor, taking PNG not just past 100 but laying the foundation to get them to a fighting score of 136/8. 

The left-hander minimized risks and batted at run-a-ball until taking on Gudakesh Motie. In the 13th over, he struck the left-arm spinner for two fours and six, taking PNG’s run rate above 6 RPO for the first time in the innings. 

Three overs later, he completed his fifty off 42 balls, becoming the first PNG player to crack a half-century in the T20 World Cup, thus etching his name in the history books. In the first fixture of this edition - where the USA beat Canada - Navneet Dhaliwal (Canada) and Aaron Jones (USA) notched up similar feats for their respective teams. 

Years ago, in 2007, Chris Gayle was the first batter to notch up a fifty in the tournament, smashing 117 off 57 balls. It was overpowered by Herschelle Gibbs's unbeaten 90 who was the first South African batter to amass a fifty in the annals of this competition. 

For India, Robin Uthappa scored the first fifty in the competition, scoring 50 off 39 balls. 

Bau was out on the next ball he faced, having scored six fours and a six. His half-century shifted PNG from a territory of embarrassment to lending them a chance to cause an update on the country’s first day of the tournament. West Indies won in the penultimate over but at the end of the 16th over, the asking rate for West Indies was 10. 

If not a win, PNG will take the fight, instigated by Bau’s innings when the chips were down. 

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