MUMBAI: A thousand runs in an innings by a batsman? Yes. It rained records on Tuesday as a 15-year-old became the first ever to register a knock of over 1,000 in an officially recognised cricket match. Riding on Pranav Dhanawade’s astonishing effort, KC Gandhi School hammered Arya Gurukool by an innings and 1,382 runs in the TM Bhandari inter-school under-16 trophy. Pranav’s unbeaten 1,009 and the margin of victory were world records.
Pranav resumed on 652 and reached four figures in two hours. He faced 327 balls, hit 129 fours with 59 sixes at a strike rate of 312.38. His team declared at 1,465 for three and bowled out the opposition cheaply. Pranav broke a record that had stood for 116 years. In England in 1899, AEJ Collins had made an unbeaten 628 for Clark House.
Pranav’s father Prashant is a rickshaw driver. “I tried getting sponsors but they told me Pranav needed to make a name for himself. I want to see him in the Mumbai U-16 team,” he said. “Congrats #PranavDhanawade on being the first ever to score 1,000 runs in an innings. Well done and work hard. You need to scale new peaks,” tweeted Sachin Tendulkar. Maharashtra government has announced that it would bear his education and coaching expenses.