Wiaan Mulder sacrificed a shot at one of cricket’s most hallowed records to start mopping up Zimbabwe in the second test at Queens Sports Club on Monday.
The first-time captain of South Africa was on 367 — just 33 runs shy of Brian Lara’s world record 400 not out set 21 years ago — when he stopped his epic innings and declared with South Africa on 626-5.
He then chipped in with two wickets in consecutive overs and a catch to help dismiss Zimbabwe for 170, enforced the follow-on, and had Zimbabwe 51-1 in its second innings by stumps.
Already 1-0 up in the short series, the World Test Championship winners were 405 runs ahead and gearing toward wrapping up another three-day win on Tuesday.
“First, I thought we have enough and we need to bowl,” Mulder told broacaster SuperSport. “Secondly, Brian Lara is a legend, he got 400 against England and for someone of that stature to keep that record is pretty special. If I get the chance again I’d probably do the same thing.”
“I was speaking to Shuks (Proteas coach Shukri Conrad) and he kind of said to me as well, ‘Let the legends keep the really big scores.’ You never know what my fate is or what is destined for me. But Brian Lara keeping that record is exactly the way it should be.”
Lara, the former West Indies skipper, is one of cricket’s legendary figures, tallying almost 12,000 runs in test cricket at an average of 52.88 per innings, including 24 centuries and 48 half-centuries from 1990 to 2006.
Within a couple of months in 1994, he set records for highest scores in test cricket (375 against England) and first-class cricket (501 not out). After losing the test record to Australia’s Matthew Hayden, who scored 380 against Zimbabwe in October 2003, Lara regained the record with an unbeaten 400 six months later in 2004.
Mulder achieved the fifth-highest test score ever, and the highest by a South African. Apart from Lara and Hayden, Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardene’s 374 is the only other higher score in the test format.
To stay in the moment for the nearly seven hours he spent in the middle, Mulder sang to himself, “Zombie” by The Cranberries, over and over.
“That was stuck in my head most of the game, and whenever I felt a little bit out of it I just kept singing, sometimes louder, to make sure I’m present. That’s my method.”
He started day two on 264 and the second new ball only eight overs old. But he picked up where he left off on Sunday, plundering the Zimbabwe bowlers.
When he became the second South African to the 300 landmark, guiding Tanaka Chivanga’s yorker to fine leg for a single, he took off his helmet, smiled and raised his bat to bathe in the applause.
“I never even dreamt of getting a double hundred never mind a triple hundred but it’s super special,” Mulder said. “The most important thing is it put the team in a good position to hopefully win this test.”
His 297 balls to the milestone were the second fastest to 300 after India’s Virender Sehwag took 278 balls versus South Africa in 2008.
