Those of you with long enough memories may recall an early stick-figure based cricket game for the Macintosh Classic known as Mac Cricket.
The endlessly customisable game let you create an infinite number of user teams, and tweak the stats of created players to your heart’s content.
It also let you turn runouts completely off, meaning you could just whack a delivery and run seven on every ball, no matter what.
With that option enabled, you’d be able to rack up huge individual innings of 500, 600 quite easily.
The point I’m trying to make here, is that scores of that magnitude were really only ever the product of a lawless video game from the early 90s.
Or, at least they were.
Mumbai teenager Pranav Dhanawade, playing for school side KC Gandhi English School, top scored in a game against rivals Arya Gurukul.
He scored 1009 not out.
No, I did not accidentally add in an extra zero into that. He made ONE THOUSAND AND NINE RUNS by himself, in a single innings.
What’s more, the fifteen year old belted that score off a blistering 327 deliveries. That’s a strike rate of 308.56.
The innings is now believed to be the highest ever individual score in minor cricket, surpassing the previous mark of 628 set by Arthur Collins way back in 1899.
The mammoth score was achieved early on the second day’s play of the match, after the first day concluded with Dhanawade already on 652*.
The near seven-hour knock included 129 fours, and 59 sixes.
Prior to this innings, Dhanawade’s highest score was a self-confessed “80-odd.”
Word of Dhanawade’s mammoth innings had swept through the local area, with a sizeable crowd gathering to view the conclusion of his knock. Local media also swept into the area to capture the monumental feat.
The score even attracted attention from Indian cricketing royalty, with Sachin Tendulkar tweeting out his congratulations.
Congrats #PranavDhanawade on being the first ever to score 1000 runs in an innings. Well done and work hard. You need to scale new peaks!
— sachin tendulkar (@sachin_rt) January 5, 2016
KC Gandhi English School declared their innings at a mind-boggling total of 3/1465, leaving Arya Gurukul 1434 runs behind on the first innings.
The opposition was then skittled in the second innings for just 52, handing KC Gandhi English School the victory by a margin of an innings and 1382 runs.
Now that is a flogging.
Source: ESPN Cricinfo.
