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Before Clarke, Gooch and Jayasuriya feasted on Indian bowling
Michael Clarke, on Thursday, became the third batsman to score a triple century against India. Rajneesh Gupta looks at the other two batsmen who feasted on the Indian bowling earlier.
Graham Gooch at Lord's in 1990
Mohammad Azharuddin hit a brilliant hundred and Kapil Dev became the first batsman to hit four consecutive sixes off Eddie Hemmings as he saved India from the follow-on with number 11 Narendra Hirwani at the other end. But all this paled away in front of the heroics of Graham Gooch.
His innings (333 runs, 628 minutes, 485 balls, 43 fours, 3 sixes) was then the sixth highest score, the highest against India and highest in any match at Lord's. Gooch would have been back in the pavilion at 36 had wicketkeeper Kiran More held on to a regulation catch.
Taking full advantage of this drop, Gooch went on to add 297 runs to his tally before being finally dismissed by Prabhakar.
In the second innings of the Test, Gooch scored another century (123). His match tally of 456 is still the highest for a batsman in Test cricket.
All this would not have been possible had Azharuddin had not made the blunder of putting England in to bat after winning the toss in perfect batting conditions! England went on to win the Test by 247 runs.
The match aggregate of 1,603 runs was a record for any Lord's Test.
Sanath Jayasuriya 340, at Colombo RPS in 1997
Batting first India, declared their first innings at 537 for 8, with three batsmen -- Navjot Sidhu,Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azhruddin -- scoring centuries.
Little did they know what was in store for them.
When Sri Lanka batted, spinner Nilesh Kulkarni nabbed opener Marvan Atapattu with his first ball in Test cricket to raise Indian hopes of a Sri Lankan batting collapse.
Unfortunately, the next wicket fell 1,103 balls later, as Jayasuriya (340 runs, 799 minutes, 578 balls,36 fours and 2 sixes) and Roshan Mahanama (225 runs, 753 minutes, 591 balls, 28 fours) shared Test cricket's then highest (576) and longest (753 minutes) partnership.
They were the first pair to bat throughout two uninterrupted days of Test cricket during a stand that fell just one run short of the then world first-class cricket record.
Jayasuriya's innings was then the highest for Sri Lanka and also the highest first-class score recorded in Sri Lanka.
Aravinda de Silva chipped in with 126. Sri Lanka's innings lasted for more than three days, and when Ranatunga finally ended India's ordeal by declaring the innings, Sri Lanka had reached a world record 952 for six!