Remembering the fourth ODI at Indore during the West Indies tour of India 2011
The ongoing Cricket series between India and West Indies began with a scintillating performance by Prithvi Shaw, who scored a century on his debut.
This was followed up by another great performance Virat Kohli (139) and Ravindra Jadeja (100).
India and Windies has always given us some great moments like Kumble taking 6/12 in the Hero Cup finals and who can forget him coming to bowl with a broken jaw in the 2002 Antigua test.
Kapil Dev provided another great moment when he took nine wickets in an innings in the 1983 Ahmedabad test. Not to forget the iconic moment of him holding the World Cup after defeating the Windies in the 1983 World Cup.
These are just a few examples. This article takes a look at a match that saw not one but two records being created - India's highest ever ODI innings score and the highest ever individual score in the history of ODI's.
The 2011 West Indies tour of India was a disappointing outing for the Windies. They had lost the three-match test series 2-0. They started off the five-match ODI series on an equally bad note losing the first two ODI's before winning the third match. They had to win the fourth ODI in order to have a chance of winning the ODI series.
The fourth ODI was held in the Holkar Stadium, Indore. India had won the toss and elected to bat first. It would be an innings that would witness one of the greatest batting performances ever and also see India scoring its highest ever ODI total.
Virender Sehwag till the third ODI had a pretty ordinary series scoring 20, 26 & 0 in the previous three matches.
This was about to change in this time around. This match saw him breaking the record for the highest ODI individual score.
He broke the record of a person who a lot of people said he had a similar batting style and stance - Sachin Tendulkar.
Sehwag in this match scored 219 runs breaking Sachin's record of 200 not out against South Africa in 2010. His 219 came off 149 balls comprising of 25 fours and seven sixes.
On route to his 219 runs, he was also involved in two 100 run partnerships - 176 with Gautam Gambhir (67) & with Suresh Raina (55).
Along with them, useful cameos by Rohit Sharma (27) & Virat Kohli (23) saw India reach 418/5 at the end of 50 overs.
This also happens to be India's highest ever innings score in the ODI's. Kemar Roach was the most expensive bowler giving away 88 runs from his allotted 10 overs.
In response, West Indies were all out for 265 runs, with Denesh Ramdin top scoring with 96 runs. Ravindra Jadeja and Rahul Sharma had picked up three wickets each. Sehwag deservedly was adjudged the Player of the Match.
With this win, India sealed off the ODI series. They would also go on to win the fifth ODI. Thus, winning the ODI series 4-1.
It would also be surprising to note that in spite of such a massive score of 219, Sehwag was not the highest run scorer for the ODI series. That honour went to a man who would in the future break his record for the highest individual score in ODI's - Rohit Sharma, who had scored a total of 305 runs in the ODI series.