Taking nothing away from Karun Nair and those before him, are triple hundreds becoming too frequent?

It is hard to imagine that Karun Nair has scored 300 runs in an innings, even a day after the feat. Not only has he done something that some of the more vaunted cricketers of yesteryear, like Sachin Tendulkar, have not done, but he also did this before his more fancied teammates Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli could.

There was an element of sadness when Kohli got out for 235 in the Mumbai Test. There had been a faint murmur of him missing out on a triple century, which would have further affirmed his greatness. Instead, Karun Nair scored 303* in his third Test match.

It is worth examining how Nair’s feat compares to that of the only other Indian who has achieved this feat – Virender Sehwag, not once but twice.

Sehwag’s double triple

The first one was scored in Multan against Pakistan in 2004. This was the first bilateral series between India and Pakistan in five years. There was a fair amount of tension leading up to the entire tour and the One-Day Internationals had to be conducted first. These included an almost record chase by Pakistan in the first match in Karachi. One would have thought that the on-field proceedings would be sedentary after that.

Sehwag had other ideas. He launched a decisive hit that would lead India to a glorious 2-1 win over their arch-rivals. The most prominent aspect of that was the cavalier manner of his achieving the coveted triple hundred in Multan. He strode down the ground and broke a record that had eluded a lot of Indians before him. Sehwag’s feat, like that of Sanath Jayasuriya, Hannif Mohammad and Inzamam-ul-Haq, became a tool of nationalism, a soft power of propaganda for Asian powerhouses showcasing their skill at a sport inherited from their colonisers.

It was about achieving something that people from other established cricketing nations – West Indies, Australia and England – had done. The circumstances under which Mohammed and Jayasuriya had achieved these landmarks belied the tug of history: Mohammad stonewalling for three days to save his team from a humiliating loss, while Jayasuriya’s 340 against India in 1997 laid bare how explosive the Islanders were in world cricket back then.

Sehwag scored his second triple in Chepauk in 2008 against a South African team about to establish its reputation as a strong away-playing side. The series was drawn 1-1, a rare occurrence in India. South Africa might have felt a touch complacent after scoring 540 runs in the first innings in Chepauk. Sehwag, like he had done four years prior, did not just turn tables but proceeded to break the table against South Africa’s head. He scored the fastest triple century ever – in 278 balls.

The match, unlike the one in Multan, did not go India’s way. This indicates the strength of the South Africans, who did not fade in response. It also showed that triple centuries had gradually become the norm in Test cricket.

Regular occurence?

Before 1990, there had been 11 triple centuries scored in Tests. Sehwag’s 319 in 2008 marked the 22nd time that it had been achieved. Within a span of 18 years, the tally had doubled. In the next eight years, there have been eight such triple centuries in varied circumstances.

A memorable one in recent times would be Brendan McCullum’s against India in 2014, which evoked memories of the innings of Mohammad in Bridgetown. In similar dire circumstances, a monumental knock was achieved by an individual who saved the team from what looked like a certain defeat.

It is interesting to note that the person who scored the last triple century before Nair was a similarly unheralded sub-continent player, Azhar Ali. He would do so against a West Indies team in Dubai a mere two months ago. Nair achieved it against an English team that had already lost the series.

The feat of scoring a 300 still remains a remarkable one, even if more players are managing to do it now than before. But it would not be a rallying cry to the beats of nostalgia to suggest that the achievement has faded. Increasingly friendly batting conditions, growing sizes of bats and shortening of boundaries have fuelled a more aggressive batting approach in general.

There is now a cesspool of batting records in international cricket. It would not be amiss to say that Brian Lara’s 400 not out, still the highest Test score, will be overcome soon and with something approach a regular beat even.

One hopes that someone else will join Jim Laker and Anil Kumble in the 10-wickets-in-an-innings club soon.