Image Credit- ESPN CricInfo.
Venue – WACA Ground, Perth [January 28, 2007].
The year was 2007, and as a 10-year-old, I returned back home after playing with my friends. However, before I sat for studies, I thought of watching some cricket. So I switched on my television set and went to the sports channel. New Zealand were playing Australia at the WACA. The Aussies batted first that day and piled up a massive total of 343 in 50 overs. Captain Ricky Ponting scored a brilliant 111 off 122 deliveries, whereas Matthew too scored a quickfire 117. However, the knock for which the author remembers this game is that of Jacob Oram. Oram played one of the best innings of his career that day. Even though the Kiwis lost the game by a very small margin, the knock became an instant classic.
The Kiwi Scorecard read 150/4 when Oram joined Ross Taylor in the middle. The visitors still need more than 190 runs to win with just 23 overs left in the innings. It looked like the game was well and truly over, and it's just the formalities which remain. However, this is when Oram did something which no one expected of him.
Oram scored a magnificent 101 off just 72 deliveries and took Kiwis closer to the target. At one stage it appeared that he could win it for the Black Caps. Unfortunately, they ended up being 9 runs short of the target. However, the sixes which Oram hit were truly remarkable. The Aussie Pace Attack Back then was legendary (Lee, McGrath, Johnson, and Bracken), but Oram looked possessed that day. He cleared the boundaries with so much ease that it felt that the match was being played in a school ground instead of at WACA.
The innings, which lasted for around 130 minutes, consisted of 4 boundaries and 6 massive sixes. Till the time Oram batted on the crease, the audience could not take their eyes off him. As a 10-year-old, the 101* was something very special. It truly made my evening. Mind you, it was no World Cup match, but a normal round-robin game of a Tri-Series. But nothing seemed normal that day. It was truly magical. A normal Sunday evening became special.
To watch the innings of Jacob Oram, Click Here.
To watch the innings of Matthew Hayden, Click Here.
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