SK Flashback: The match that changed cricket forever

A new template for batsmen

The scoreboard of the match that created history

Since that match in 2006, a score of above 350 has been put together 80-odd times in ODIs as opposed to only 15 occurrences before that. The match broke many records but its biggest contribution was the self-belief it instilled in batsmen around the world. If 434 could be chased, how could any other total be beyond reach?

The efforts of Gibbs, Smith and Ponting shine on like fluorescent footprints for future batsmen. Cricket doesn’t have theoretical classrooms but the way they fashioned their innings can be the subject of multiple case studies. Their performances were ahead of their time.

Batsmen have followed their example whenever there has been a high score to chase. They wrote a template for fearless big-hitting that other players instantly put to practice, especially when the T20 format became mainstream in the next couple of years.

A total of 872 runs were scored in 99.5 overs and once this tap of runs was opened, the bowlers simply couldn’t turn it shut.

On the same ground a few years later, the highest T20 score was chased, the fastest fifty in ODIs was hit and the fastest century in ODIs was scored. But it all started that autumn evening in 2006. It was a match that showed batsmen a new utopia and brought the impossible within reach. It was really a match that changed cricket forever.