A 19-year-old bowler has become the first to take five wickets in a single over in South African Twenty20 cricket.
Chad Laycock did it on Tuesday, playing for KZN Inland against the Titans in the CSA Pro20 Cup at Pietermaritzburg. He finished with career-best figures of 6/26.
The over in question was the 19th of the Titans' innings. Laycock first dismissed Leus du Plooy, then took the wickets of Dayyaan Galiem, Aphiwe Mnyanda, Janco Smit and Esosa Aihevba off the next four deliveries.
Four wickets in four consecutive deliveries is itself a record in South African T20 cricket. Among Full Member teams in Twenty20 internationals, the same sequence has previously been achieved by Lasith Malinga, Rashid Khan, Curtis Campher and Jason Holder.
Laycock's figures are the best in the history of the CSA Pro20 Cup, passing Beuran Hendricks's 6/29 from 2014.
He had taken the first wicket of the innings as well, dismissing Lhuan-dre Pretorius in the ninth over for 81 from 36 balls. Pretorius and his opening partner had put on 112.
According to ESPNcricinfo, whose records The Times of India cited, Laycock is the fourth bowler known to have taken five wickets in an over in men's Twenty20 cricket, after Bangladesh's Al-Amin Hossain, India's Abhimanyu Mithun and Indonesia's Gede Priandana.
Priandana remains the only bowler, male or female, to have done it in a Twenty20 international, against Cambodia in December 2025. Al-Amin's came for UCB-BCB XI against Abahani Limited in the 2013-14 Victory Day T20 Cup, and Mithun's in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy semi-final for Karnataka against Haryana in 2019-20.
The five wickets ended the Titans' innings on 204. The side had been 193 for four when the over began.
It was not enough. Chasing 205, KZN Inland finished on 183 for six and lost by 21 runs. Laycock was unbeaten on 31. The win extended the table-topping Titans' unbeaten run in the competition to six matches.
It is worth looking at the over the way cricket normally looks at overs, which is in runs. The Titans began it on 193 for four and finished on 204. The most destructive over in the competition's history cost 11 runs.
The Titans were dismissed for 204 inside 19 overs, a rate of a little under 11 an over. On the measure by which cricket actually judges bowlers, Laycock's historic over was close to exactly average.
It was also his most expensive. He conceded 26 runs in the whole match. Eleven of them arrived in the one over for which he will be remembered.
The competition keeps a record for the best bowling figures in its history. It keeps no record for the best single over. Laycock now holds the first. The second does not exist, and on the available evidence would not have gone to him.
There is a further detail in the scorebook. The five wickets ended the innings, which denied the Titans the rest of their overs and denied Laycock the cheap deliveries that normally follow a collapse.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has therefore recorded the evening as four facts. A bowler took five wickets in one over. He conceded 11 runs doing it. He broke a twelve-year-old competition record. His side lost by 21. The scorebook contains all four without comment.