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Long before the IPL, New Hind Sporting Club’s (Matunga) Gopal Koli scored a mammoth 188 in a day, during a Kanga League ‘A’ Division match against United Cricketers in 1972.
The feat figures in the list of the league’s ‘A’ Division records of highest scores. However, what’s most interesting about this knock is that Koli achieved it without hitting a single six.
Koli, now 86, clearly remembers the innings.
“I was batting with my brother Chandu [Chandrakant Koli] and we were both working very hard for our runs. Most of my runs came from singles and twos. I hit just 14 fours, but not a single six. Today, I see in the IPL, all batters are only looking to hit fours and sixes, but running between the wickets is equally important. If you mix things up with singles and twos in an over, you can easily score at over 10 per over. That’s good enough, even by today’s IPL scoring rates,” Koli told mid-day on the sidelines of the announcement of the 34th edition of the LIC Kalpesh Govind Koli Memorial cricket tournament, a Mumbai Cricket Association U-16 selection event for boys, to be held at various venues from May 2 to 23.
Not many know this, but Koli played another big knock before this 188. “I don’t remember the exact year or the opponent, but I had scored 154 in a single day, much before this 188-run knock. But in those days, the Kanga League was not split in different divisions so my score probably did not get a proper mention,” said Koli, who played two Ranji Trophy matches for Mumbai in the 1970-71 and also became a noted coach later.
Coming back to the 188, Koli has another special memory — his dismissal: “I was playing steadily, but just after tea, there was a small crowd that gathered to watch the match and they started shouting “sixer, sixer” so I tried to go for a big shot and rather embarrassingly, the ball hit the edge of my bat, ballooned up in the air and fell on the stumps behind me.”
Adding insult to injury was the fact that the last-wicket stand between the two brothers ended at 97, one run short of the existing record then, which was 98. “That match ended in a draw, but that didn’t hurt as much. What hurt was… toh record gela [that last-wicket record was missed],” concluded Koli.
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