Overview:
Wiaan Mulder scored a triple hundred against Zimbabwe but stand-in South Africa captain was not interested to break Brian Lara’s world record of the highest individual score in Test cricket.
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (AP) — Wiaan Mulder scored a triple hundred against Zimbabwe but stand-in South Africa captain was not interested to break Brian Lara’s world record of the highest individual score in Test cricket. He amassed an unbeaten was 367 in the second Test and was just 33 runs shy of Lara’s 400 not out achieved 21 years ago. He stopped the marathon knock and declared with South Africa on 626-5.
The Proteas dismissed Zimbabwe for 170 and enforced the follow-on. The visitors were 51-1 in its second innings by stumps. “First, I thought we have enough and we need to bowl,” Mulder told broadcaster SuperSport.
“Secondly, Brian Lara is a legend, he got 400 against England and for someone of that stature to keep that record is pretty special. If I get the chance again I’d probably do the same thing. I was speaking to Shuks (Proteas coach Shukri Conrad) and he kind of said to me as well, ‘Let the legends keep the really big scores.’ You never know what my fate is or what is destined for me. But Brian Lara keeping that record is exactly the way it should be,” he added.
Lara, the former West Indies skipper, is one of cricket’s legendary figures, tallying almost 12,000 runs in test cricket at an average of 52.88 per innings, including 24 centuries and 48 half-centuries from 1990 to 2006.
Within a couple of months in 1994, he set records for highest scores in test cricket (375 against England) and first-class cricket (501 not out). After losing the test record to Australia’s Matthew Hayden, who scored 380 against Zimbabwe in October 2003, Lara regained the record with an unbeaten 400 six months later in 2004.
To stay in the moment for the nearly seven hours he spent in the middle, Mulder sang to himself, “Zombie” by The Cranberries, over and over.
“That was stuck in my head most of the game, and whenever I felt a little bit out of it I just kept singing, sometimes louder, to make sure I’m present. That’s my method.”
