Yuvraj says his six-sixes record 'will break very soon' — blame the apprentice he built

September 19, 2007. Durban. Andrew Flintoff sledges Yuvraj Singh between overs. What happens next is the most famous over in T20 cricket history: six consecutive sixes off Stuart Broad, a 12-ball fifty, and a moment so absurd it turned a sport's format into a global phenomenon overnight.

For nineteen years, that record has stood as Indian cricket's most iconic act of defiance. Two men have matched the six-sixes feat in T20Is since — Kieron Pollard and Nepal's Dipendra Singh Airee — but Yuvraj remains the only Indian to have done it in international cricket.

Now, speaking to ANI at the launch of his nutrition supplement Protocol32, Yuvraj has done something he has never done before: he has acknowledged that the clock is ticking on his greatest achievement.

Yuvraj did not explicitly identify who he thinks will break the record. He did not need to. Three days before that interview, his own protégé Abhishek Sharma walked out at Wellington's Hnry Stadium and smashed 113 off 38 balls against New Zealand — eleven sixes and nine fours — leading India to the fastest team hundred in men's T20I history (100 runs in five overs flat). The previous record belonged to Romania.

Abhishek's half-century came in 15 balls. Fast, yes. But still three balls slower than his mentor's 12-ball mark from 2007, a fact Yuvraj could not resist pointing out on X within minutes of the innings.

The trolling is affectionate, but it masks a serious reality: Abhishek Sharma is probably the most destructive T20I batter on the planet right now. After the Wellington masterclass, the 26-year-old sits atop the ICC T20I batting rankings — a position he has held for the better part of two years.

He has already overtaken Yuvraj's career tally of T20I sixes for India. His strike rate of 196.61 across 71 T20Is is not a cameo outlier — it is a settled, sustained assault on bowling attacks across conditions. Four centuries, fourteen fifties, and an average of 33.33 to go with it.

When Yuvraj hit those six sixes in Durban, he was responding to a sledge. When Abhishek bats, no provocation is required. The violence is the default setting.

After his Wellington blitz, the NZ v India series moved to Auckland, where Glenn Phillips' own 107 off 49 balls gave New Zealand an 87-run consolation win. The fifth T20I in Hamilton on November 1 gives Abhishek one more chance to attack the record in this series — and given that he has already hit 11 sixes in a single innings without needing six in a row, the question is not whether he can but when the right over arrives.

Yuvraj knows this. His trolling is not mockery — it is the mentor's way of keeping the target visible. Every time he reminds Abhishek about the 12-ball fifty, he is saying: this is the benchmark, and I dare you to beat it.

What makes Yuvraj's admission remarkable is not the prediction itself — anyone watching Abhishek Sharma bat can see the six-sixes record is vulnerable. It is the generosity behind it. Yuvraj built his legacy on one over in Durban. He then spent years building the batsman most capable of erasing it.

The 12-ball fifty still stands. The six sixes in an over still stands. But Yuvraj himself is telling the world: the countdown has started. And when it finally falls, the man who swings the axe will have been forged in Yuvraj's own backyard — a left-hander batting like the game owes him nothing, just the way his mentor taught him.

"And I can't make 100 of 30 or 34 balls. Well played sir," Yuvraj posted after Abhishek's century. The sir was the tell. The master sees the future, and he is at peace with it.