NEW DELHI: Only for the second time in cricketing history has a batsman managed to score twin double centuries in a single first-class match. Stand up and applaud Sri Lankan 28-year-old
Angelo Perera.
In nearly 200 years of first-class cricket before this, only one batsman had managed to register double tons in each innings of a match. That was back in 1938, when
Arthur Fagg managed 244 and 202 not out for Kent versus Essex at Colchester.
Now, captaining
Nondescripts Cricket Club
(NCC) against
Sinhalese Sports Club
(SSC), Perera has entered the club by stroking 201 off 203 balls in the first innings, before his 231 off 268 balls in the second, as the four-day game was eventually drawn.
On a flat SSC ground pitch, Perera smashed 40 boundaries and four sixes in total at quick strike-rates of 99.01 and 86.19 in the first and second innings, respectively. This against a formidable bowling attack comprising ex-Lankan internationals
Dhammika Prasad and
Sachithra Senanayake.
There have been 14 double-tons scored in Sri Lanka's Premier League Tournament so far, but Perera is the only batsman to hit more than one. Having made his international debut in March 2013 in a T20I between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Perera went on to play one more T20I and four ODIs.
Out of the national side since 2016, his latest performance should surely put him back in the reckoning.