5 players who came close to hitting an ODI double century before Sachin Tendulkar
Tendulkar celebrates after scoring the first ever ODI double century There was once a time in ODI cricket when a batsman scoring an individual 200 in One-Day International cricket was out of the question. It looked way out of reach earlier, but with the advent of T20 cricket, it no longer seems a surprise if someone breaks the 200-run barrier. You will hardly find a cricket follower who does not know the fact that Sachin Tendulkar was the first man to score a double century in ODI cricket. But it is not that no one had given a shot at the seemingly impossible milestone before the Master Blaster got there.Here we take a look at the 5 instances when players came close to scoring a double hundred prior to Sachin’s memorable feat in 2010.
#5 Gary Kirsten (South Africa) - 188 not out vs UAE
Apart from being the World Cup-winning former coach of the Indian team, Gary Kirsten was also a prolific batsman for South Africa in his playing days. Many people may not know that once in his career, he also reached close to scoring a double hundred in an ODI innings.
This was when he scored 188 not out in a group encounter against UAE in the 1996 World Cup. Although the result of the match was a foregone conclusion, Kirsten gave it some amount of significance through his special knock. It came off 159 balls and included 4 sixes and 13 fours.
For 19 years, Gary Kirsten’s marathon knock remained the highest individual score in World Cup history.