The distinctive characteristic of his knock was that he amassed almost 70 per cent of the runs through boundaries - 12 fours and 16 sixes. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar are the only other batsmen in the world to have scored a double century in ODIs.
Coincidentally, they too garnered a majority of their runs through boundaries. This pattern also largely holds good when batsmen notch up centuries. As per the new ODI rules, five fielders have to be inside the 30-yard circle during the Powerplay overs.
That leaves a team with only four fielders to man the boundaries (wicketkeeper and bowler also in the ring). This gives batsmen the license to play their strokes freely.
So while there's hardly any respite for bowlers, batsmen are making a killing. But the International Cricket Council feels that the new rules (two new balls and five fielders inside the ring during powerplays) have been a big success.
"As compared to previous years even before the new regulations were introduced, the total runs scored in an innings have more or less remained constant," ICC Chief Executive David Richardson said on Tuesday. "That's why we introduced fielding restrictions in the first place. We wanted to try and make the game attacking and more exciting.
The trend these days is that there are more wickets falling and more boundaries scored and the totals on an average are remaining the same," he insisted. Richardson may be convinced that the new regulations have been successful but a quick look at the scores in the sub-continent reveals the sorry plight of bowlers.
Totals in the 350-360 range are pretty common, and in some cases, even being successfully chased. A disgruntled bowler, in course of the India-Australia series, in fact, went on to say that 'why play bowlers? Install a bowling machine on the pitch instead.'
Richardson, a wicketkeeper batsman of repute in his playing days, was sympathetic to the bowlers' plight in the sub-continent. "You do find wickets where bowlers simply don't get any bargain. Bowlers really have a hard job.
Conditions vary across the world and certainly in sub-continent where you find yourself on a good batting pitch where there's no spin, no movement off the seam, the bowlers really have their hands full."
But Richardson almost immediately went back to his original stand: "If you look at results all over the world in varied conditions like England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, you will find that the new fielding restrictions have worked well."
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