Which Indian has made the highest score against England?
(14 December 2001)
At the third Test against England at Bombay in 1993, two players had
learned their cricket on the playing fields of Shivaji Park and
Shardashram Vidyalaya under the tutelage of Ramakant Achrekar. But chalk
and cheese had nothing on this pair; while the right-hander went on to
become arguably the greatest batsman in the world, the left-hander faded
flamboyantly away.
Yet, in that match, it was Vinod Kambli, and not Sachin Tendulkar, who
held centre stage. Playing in his third Test, Kambli came in at number
three after Navjot Singh Sidhu and Manoj Prabhakar had replied with a
century opening stand to England's first-innings total of 347. He
proceeded then to outshine Graeme Hick's 178 with a brilliant 224,
sharing, in the process, a 194-run stand with childhood friend
Tendulkar.
Kambli's knock ensured that India only had to bat once; they went on to
win that Test by an innings and 15 runs, completing only their second
clean sweep ever. Kambli achieved a landmark of his own, passing
Gundappa Viswanath's 222 to become the highest scorer for India against
England.
Kambli scored another double century in his next Test, against Zimbabwe,
but fell out of favour with the selectors and the team management.
Consequently, although his Test average stands at an excellent 54.2, his
promise is allowed to shine only at the first-class level, as happened
against the visiting English side at the beginning of the current tour.
For more details on all the above facts check out [ StatsGuru ]
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