the slowest innings ~ Hashim Amla tops the list with todays ! - remember Gavaskar !?!

1975 ~ the inaugural World Cup in ODI Cricket called Prudential World Cup [it was 60 overs aside !] made the game more popular.  In the inaugural match of the tournament, England convincingly beat India.  After recording the first 300 + score aided by Dennia Amiss and a fast 50 off only 30 balls by Chris Old – India chasing 335 made a paltry 132/3.   Cricket fans who followed would still feel ashamed –  Sunil Gavaskar opened with legendary fielder Eknath Solkar, followed by Anshuman Gaekwad, considered as a slow player, Gundappa Viswanath and Brijesh Patel. Vishy top scored with 37 of 59 balls.  Gavaskar  the first to reach 10000 milestone in Test and who made 3000+ runs in ODI crawled to an unbeaten 36 off 174 balls !  - coming as it did in front of a full house at Lord's, including many  India  supporters.  G. S. Ramchand, the manager, made a press statement afterwards that Gavaskar had considered the England score unobtainable and had taken practice.

Anshuman made a 80 at Chepauk in 1975 played some gutsy innings taking lot of body hits in Caribbean tours.  In test no. 962 at Jullundhur in Sept 1983, he grinded Pak attack to a patient  201 playing 671 minutes facing 436 deliveries.

At Ferozshah Kotla today, South Africa in  the final innings of a long and wretched series displayed  unyielding stubbornness,  responding with dour defence chasing mammoth 481 were 72 for 2 in 72 overs, yes ! India declared half an hour from lunch, after Ajinkya Rahane  became  the fifth Indian batsman to score twin tons in a Test match.  This is a test where draw is a result and South Africa were batting time, runs were simply not on their minds.

At stumps, Amla was batting on 23 off 207 balls and with him was AB de Villiers, on 11 off 91. Their third-wicket partnership was worth 23 off 29.2 overs. Before that, Amla and Temba Bavuma had put on 44 in 38.4 overs.  As of now, Amla’s innings tops the list of slowest.  Russel in 1995 at Johannesburg against SA [29 off 235]; Chris Tavare at Chennai in 1982 [35 off 240 balls] and AB de Villiers at Adelaide in 2012 [33 off 220] are the ones following. 

For India, the slowest is Manoj Prabhakar’s 41 off 220 deliveries against New Zealand again at Chennai in Oct 1995.  Shivlal Yadav made 43 off 213 at Auckland in 1981

Innings like these test the patience of spectators and are not the best advertisement for brand Cricket  ~ yet, South Africa have reason !!!

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

6^th Dec 2015.

Photo credit : bcci.tv