India’s ODI and T20 captain MS Dhoni became the latest cricketer to congratulate Pranav Dhanawade on his world-record breaking 1009* before admitting that he would “have gotten bored”.
Pranav, who had already the beat highest individual score in cricket, held by AEJ Collins’ unbeaten 628 in a school match at Clifton College in 1899, at the end of day one, finished with 1009* off just 323 balls against Arya Gurukul School. His team created another world record as they declared their innings on 1465.
Of Pranav's record-breaking knock, Dhoni said: “It's not a joke to score so many runs. It is serious business in any conditions and ground keeping in mind the age. It's tremendous, it is important to improve. He must be a very special kid. He must have been practising a lot to do something like that. because I would have gotten bored batting for so long.”
The youngster's knock consisted of 59 sixes and 129 fours and he finished with a staggering strike rate of 312.38.
“I don’t think he is somebody who scored it by ones and twos, I think he hit a lot of sixes. so that’s again a good sign, which means he is picking the right deliveries to hit and at the same time he is calculating his batting, it’s something that is quite rare,” he added.
India’s limited-overs skipper, who is currently in Australia, preparing for the upcoming ODI and T20 series against the reigning World champions added that Pranav possessed a "rare" quality that many cricketers don't.
“We have seen batsmen who can really hit or somebody who are very sound, but to have that right mix is something that is very rare. It’s good. I wish him all the very best and hopefully, he will keep doing well," he added.
The youngster from Mumbai had earlier received words of praise from his idol, Sachin Tendulkar.
Several former and current Indian players wished the youngster well, one in fact, compared Pranav's exploits with that of Sachin. Harbhajan Singh tweeted:
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