What’s the story?
Two days back, 21-year-old batsman from Delhi, Mohit Ahlawat created history by becoming the first batsman to score a triple-century in the T20I format. Now, it has been revealed that the ground in which he achieved this feat is roughly a 60m x 40m patch with a 25-yard boundary behind the batsman.
The ground is a dustbowl that is skirted by tightly-packed weather-beaten matchbox-size flats surrounded by low-hanging electric cables.
In an exclusive interview with Indian Express, Ahmed Ali, who has played on this ground for a local club, admitted that it is easy to score runs on this ground because of the relatively smaller dimensions. “You are never out of the match on this ground because even an average batsman can hit a century as it is easy to hit boundaries. Even in yesterday’s match, Ahlawat’s team scored 416 but the rivals replied with 216 in just 15 overs,” Ali said.
In case you didn’t know...
On 7th of February, Ahlawat, who has played three Ranji matches for Delhi in which he scored five runs, smashed 300 in just 72 balls with the help of 14 fours and 39 sixes for his team Maavi XI against Friends XI at Lalita Park in a local tournament in Delhi called Friends Premier League.
After his record-breaking innings, Delhi Daredevils CEO Hemant Dua confirmed that Ahlawat has been called up for trials with the Indian Premier League side. The wicketkeeper-batsman also conceded that he has put his name in the IPL auction but he is not sure whether the knock will make people notice him.
The heart of the matter
As mentioned in the article, the match was played on a ground which is just a 60mx40m patch and the boundary behind the batsman is just 25 yards. In simple words, one needs at least five Lalita Parks to match the 172.9m X 147.8m Melbourne Cricket Ground. According to the locals, this ground is a batsmen’s paradise and this is not the first time that they witnessed something like this.
Last year, a local batsman nicknamed Lara, scored a double hundred in the same tournament and a day after Ahlawat’s heroics, the spectators witnessed yet another swashbuckling innings as a batsman named Sultan Ansari scored 139 runs off just 39 balls with 18 sixes, five of them coming in one over.
The treasurer of the tournament, Manohar Yadav also clarified that the batsmen get only two runs when the ball goes past the square-leg boundary as the dimension in that area is too small.
Parallels from history
Last year, a 15-year-old batsman from Mumbai, Pranav Dhanawade scored an unbeaten 1009 runs in an under-16 inter-school match and became the first batsman to achieve this in any form of recognised cricket. After the initial praises, Dhanawade’s knock received a lot of criticisms as the ground dimensions were too small and his opponents were under-14 cricketers with most of them playing their first competitive match.
Sportskeeda’s Take
Scoring 300 in a format in any form of cricket itself is a great achievement irrespective of the size of the ground and when the feat is achieved in the T20 format, it is simply humongous. The dimensions of the ground show the truth behind the knock, but taking away all the credits from the youngster won’t be fair.
It is not easy to stay at the crease, keep hitting the balls out of the park and scoring 300 in this format. So, instead of looking at the negative side, let us take a moment and appreciate the batsman for his knock.
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