Finn Allen lights up the start of cricket in the Bay Area.

Finn Allen got to 100 runs in just 34 balls, and he didn’t stop there. He got to fifty runs in just 16 balls as well.

American sports fans have a special connection to the fields where their teams play that can’t be found anywhere else. One of those places is the Oakland Coliseum.

The Oakland Athletics played there for more than 50 years, until they moved from the Bay Area to Las Vegas.

The A’s haven’t played at the Coliseum since 1968. This summer is the first time that has happened since then.

The place still affects me. There was a father and son at the Coliseum. The father was 94 years old, and the son was 68. They had been attending athletics games since the first one in 1968.

Took the first chance to think about the good old days and enjoy being on that holy ground again, but this time for a baseball game instead of a sports event.

Most likely, they came to respect their sports hero one last time. Finn Allen had a different plan, though.

Finn Allen hit a devastating 151, with an impressive 19 sixes. It was more than just an inning.

Anyone in the US who likes sports would find that sales pitch for cricket very interesting.

Allen put on a great show of strength and skill, making sure that the Coliseum would not lose any more baseball games for a while.

Allen’s smarts not only tied the older men back to the venue, but they also moved thousands of kids in the stands, who were amazed at how bright the Kiwi was.

For cricket, it wasn’t the best place to be. Still, Allen hit the ball as well as I’ve seen in a while.

The Coliseum’s second and third floors were burned by most of those balls.

I thought of Brendon McCullum’s famous 158 on the first night of the IPL when Allen brought the party to San Francisco’s first big cricket game.

That score got everyone’s attention across the country.

It was like McCullum telling everyone that the monster was coming. When Allen played, it was like hearing the first notes of a new cricket symphony in the San Francisco Bay Area.

One that could capture people’s interest, persuade those who don’t believe, and be the start of something that will forever change the Bay Area.

Like how a good seller would use an interesting first line to start their pitch.

Similarly, Finn Allen fired the first shot.

He shimmied to hit the ramp shot on the first ball, and it went over the fine leg fence for a six. You can’t score runs in baseball from behind the hitter.

While that was going on, Allen’s perfectly timed ramp shot, which went long, was sure to amaze many baseball fans who had never seen anything like it before.

Allen tried the ramp shot over and over, but the ball would only go one way: up and into the stands.

A lot of those ramps ended up in the stands in right field, which makes sense since that’s where the biggest and rowdiest Oakland Athletics fans used to sit.

It looked like a sign.

For die-hard fans to go back to the Coliseum they loved and cheer for a new group of heroes who use different bats but still have the same brave spirit.

People would never forget that day as the one when Allen hit the baseball.

He and his big bat looked like they couldn’t be beat.

The harm would not have been as bad if the wickets sent from the T20 World Cup spot had behaved the same way they did in New York, where they made batters dance to the bowlers’ music.

The natural features of the Bay Area, on the other hand, made the sound less harsh, as if the land were enjoying the moment.

People in the area thought it was time for a big Kiwi to put on a show that would start the rise of cricket in the area.

With 19 sixes in an MLC game, Finn Allen beats Chris Gayle’s record.

Finn Allen, the starter for the San Francisco Unicorns, hit a crazy 19 sixes in their MLC game against the Washington Freedom. This made history.

Chris Gayle from the West Indies and Sahil Chauhan from Estonia previously held the record for most sixes in a T20 match, with 18 each. The New Zealander broke that record.

This feat was achieved by Chris Gayle in 2017 during the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) against the Dhaka Dynamites. Sahil Chauhan did it in Cyprus in 2024.

In the first game of the tournament, Finn Allen hit 151 off 51 balls against the reigning champions.

That score was the best by a single player in Major League Cricket (MLC) since the first season in 2023.

They had bowlers from New Zealand named Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson, Rachin Ravindra, and Glenn Phillips. The right-handed batter hit his century in just 34 balls.

Allen also set a new record for the fastest 150 in T20s. He hit that mark in just 49 balls.

Dewald Brevis used to hold the record for the fastest 150 in the shorter form.

He hit 150 off 52 balls when he scored 162 against the Knights in the 2022 South African home T20s.

Phillips got Finn Allen at long-on in the 18th over of the game and bowled Mitchell Owen out.

When he was done, the San Francisco Unicorns hit 269 runs, which is a record for the MLC team.

Washinton Freedom lost by a massive 123 runs after being out for 146 runs in 13.1 overs. Their captain was the Australian Glenn Maxwell.