Chris Rattue: Is cricket's big hitting getting lost in the crowd?

Martin Guptill hits out against Sri Lanka. Photo / Getty

Martin Guptill was the unlikely world record chasing hero at Hagley Oval. Then again in modern Big-Bat cricket, anything is possible.

I would have rated Brendon McCullum as the only Kiwi contender to chase South African AB de Villiers record of scoring a one-day 50 off 16 balls. Guptill can be very good, even outstanding, but not quite that outstanding.

Then along came Sri Lanka.

Guptill's amazing hitting was great fun to watch, but Sri Lanka are a joke. Guptill was a hero, but the touring Sri Lankans rate as zero.

The beleaguered tourists have little bursts of enlightenment before slipping back into a very dark place. They set a leg side trap for Guptill, got him to offer a catch from the first ball, then true to form dropped it.

To convert an old line, Sri Lanka have only three problems - they can't bat, bowl or field up to scratch on a regular basis. Even desperation is in short supply - now and then in the field their boundaries of effort appear to stop just before the boundary rope.

Guptill's superlative clean hitting reflected the game's overall rise in batting skills and innovation - six of the 10 fastest one-day 50s in history have been posted in the last three years. Four of them have occurred this year. This also reflects the power of modern cricket bats.

What we saw from Guptill is quite common place today, especially if you watch T20. Batsmen repeatedly launch the ball all over the place, or try to. In the age of packaged sports highlights - a viewing trend that will only grow - relentless big hitting becomes even more common to the eye and thus loses its extreme appeal.

Guptill's amazing innings sent me ferreting through the record books. Shahid Afridi, the freakish Pakistani one day specialist, was just 16 and playing his first international innings when he set a record for the fastest one day century, from 37 balls, against Sri Lanka in 1996. Wow.

Guptill's amazing Hagley onslaught will be enthusiastically remembered, and congratulations to him. But it would have seemed more stunning if it had occurred 20 years ago.

Fastest One Day Fifties:

AB De Villiers, 2015 - 16 balls
Sanath Jayasuriya, 1996 - 17 balls
Martin Guptill, 2015 - 17 balls
Kusal Perera, 2015 - 17 balls
Simon O'Donnell, 1990 - 18 balls
Shahid Afridi, 1996 - 18 balls
Shahid Afridi, 2002 - 18 balls
Glenn Maxwell, 2013 - 18 balls
Shahid Afridi, 2014 - 18 balls
Brendon McCullum, 2015 - 18 balls