South Africa Skipper Wiaan Mulder finishes 33 runs short of breaking Lara’s 400 Record

Wiaan Mulder, the South African skipper was on the verge of chasing the infamous Brian Lara record of 400 runs in a test as he walked off field for lunch with 367 runs while the team declared, their scorecard read 625/5. 

Mulder withstood the second day inning after scoring 367 off only 297 balls, differing only a meagre 33 from breaking Lara’s 400 runs record and also becoming the second fastest triple ton after Virender Sehwag’s 278-ball record in 2008. The monumental score of 623 gave the confidence for the proteas to declare while Mulder’s epic inning hangs as one of the best. 

He is a Triple centurion for South Africa after Hasim Amla while also surpassing Amla’s record of 311, now etching his name as the South African to hold the highest individual test score. On the topic of records, Mulder also surpassed Hanif Mohammed’s 337 against West Indies and making it the highest in an away game. 

While the South African batters withheld their turns, Mulder’s key innings places him among some of the greatest in the history like Sanath Jayasuriya (340), Len Hutton (364) and Sir Garry Sobers (365) while positioning himself at the fifth position among the best scores in Test Cricket. 

Mulder’s innings comes with godspeed run scoring with 49 fours and 4 sixes and his innings strike rate of 109.88 is the best among the Triple Centurions now. Stepping in for an injured Keshav Maharaj as the skipper, Mulder becomes the first Captain to have test triple ton.