Narayan Jagadeesan breaks world record for highest ever List A score
Bengaluru (PTI): Tamil Nadu batter Narayan Jagadeesan on Monday broke the world record for the highest ever individual score in men's List A cricket by hammering a 141-ball 277 against Arunachal Pradesh in the Vijay Hazare Trophy here.
The 26-year old bettered the record of Alistair Brown's previous high of 268 for Surrey against Glamorgan in 2002. The Indian record for highest List A score of 264 by Rohit Sharma in an ODI against Sri Lanka was also obliterated in the process.
Tamil Nadu's 506 for two in the Group C match is also the highest team total in men's List A cricket, bettering the previous best of 498 for four by England against the Netherlands earlier this year.
The previous highest List A total in India was 457 was four by Mumbai against Puducherry in Jaipur in 2021.
Veteran India cricketer and Jagadeesan's TN teammate Dinesh Karthik congratulated him and said in a tweet: "WORLD RECORD alert. What an amazing effort by @Jagadeesan_200 Couldn't be happier for him. Big things await. Sai Sudarshan what an amazing tournament so far. This opening combo is killing it. Well done boys."
Hinting at the gulf in standards, he said in another tweet: "Also on another side note Does it make sense to have the north east teams play the elite teams in the league phase. It just topples the run rates of teams and imagine if a match against one of these teams gets rained off! Can't they have a separate group and then qualify?"
Arunachal was among the nine teams that joined the domestic circuit from the 2018-19 season.
It rained records as Jagadeesan went on the rampage against the hapless Arunachal bowling attack.
By reaching 200 in 114 balls, he made the joint fastest ever double ton in List A history. Travis Head had taken 114 balls to score his double century for South Australia against Queensland in Australia's Marsh Cup last year.
Jagadeesan's 15 sixes made it the highest by a batter in an innings in Vijay Hazare Trophy, improving on the 12 by Yashasvi Jaiswal during his knock of 203 in the 2019-20 season.
The right-handed batter also made a new mark by scoring his fifth consecutive List A century.
Besides, he went past Prithvi Shaw (227 vs Puducherry in 2021) for the highest score ever in Vijay Hazare Trophy.
The Tamil Nadu wicketkeeper also became the sixth batter to hit a double ton in India's premier one-day competition.
Jagadeesan's opening wicket partnership of 416 with B Sai Sudharsan, who made 154 (102 balls, 19 fours, 2 six), is also a record for the highest partnership for any wicket in List 'A' cricket.
The previous highest partnership was 372 between Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels for the second wicket for West Indies against Zimbabwe in an ODI in 2015.
The previous highest partnership in Indian domestic cricket was 338 by Sanju Samson and Sachin Baby for Kerala against Goa in 2019.
On Saturday, he had joined Kumar Sangakkara, Alviro Petersen and Devdutt Padikkal by scoring his fourth consecutive hundreds in List A cricket.
Jagadeesan's tons in the ongoing Hazare Trophy tournament have come against Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Goa, apart from Monday's monumental knock against Arunachal.
By scoring his fifth ton in the ongoing tournament, Jagadeesan went past the record of four in a single edition. Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Prithvi Shaw and Ruturaj Gaikwad had hit four hundreds each in previous years.
Jagadeesan was recently released by Chennai Super Kings ahead of the IPL auction next month.
Meanwhile, Arunachal's Chetan Anand leaked as many as 114 runs in his 10 overs.
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Congress not just removed clothes at AI Summit but exposed its intellectual bankruptcy: PM Modi
New Delhi (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday came down heavily on the Congress for the shirtless protest by its youth wing members at the AI Impact Summit recently, saying the opposition party can tear as many clothes as it wants, but his government will continue to work for the country's progress.
Addressing the News18 Rising Bharat Summit, Modi also said that the Congress did not just remove its clothes in front of foreign guests but also exposed its intellectual bankruptcy, asserting that the millennials have already taught the country's oldest party a lesson, and now Gen-Z is ready to do the same.
In an apparent jibe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Modi said the opposition was unhappy seeing the statue of "Babbar Shers" (lions) installed atop the new Parliament building, but their own “Babbar Shers" were running away after facing the "shoes" of the general public.
Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, had said on February 24 that he was proud of the "Babbar Shers" of the Indian Youth Congress, who "fearlessly" raised their voice at the AI Summit.
"Congress ke Babbar Sher logon ki jute kha ke bhaag gaye (The 'lions' of Congress ran away after being hit by shoes by the public)," Modi said.
The prime minister was apparently referring to the protesting Youth Congress workers being heckled by some people at the AI Summit.
On February 20, a group of Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers staged a dramatic protest inside Hall No. 5 of the summit venue in Delhi by removing their shirts to reveal T-shirts printed with anti-government slogans, triggering a political slugfest between the BJP and the Congress.
“Congress can tear as many clothes as it wants, but we will continue to work for India's development. Congress not just shed clothes at the AI Summit, it also exposed its incapabilities in front of foreign guests,” Modi said in his nearly 45-minute speech.
He said the AI Summit was a moment of pride for the entire nation, but unfortunately, Congress attempted to tarnish this national celebration.
"When the frustration and despair of failure weigh on the mind, and arrogance makes one's head spin, such a mindset emerges to defame the country," he said.
The prime minister also alleged that the Congress always takes refuge in Mahatma Gandhi to hide its failures, but tries to give credit to one family for anything good.
"People of our country welcomed every good step taken by our government, but the Congress only knows how to oppose everything. The votes of Congress are not stolen; rather, people do not consider Congress worthy of their votes. Millennials first taught a lesson to Congress, now Gen-Z is ready to do the same," he said.
Modi also said that in a democracy, the role of the opposition is not just about blindly opposing every move of the government, but presenting an alternative vision, and that is why the "enlightened public" of the country is "teaching a lesson" to Congress now.
In 1984, the Congress got 39 per cent of the votes and more than 400 seats. But its votes declined consistently in the subsequent elections, Modi said.
"Today, the condition of the Congress is such that it has more than 50 MLAs in just four states. Over the past 40 years, the number of young voters in the country has increased, but the Congress has clearly diminished," Modi said.
On the recent trade deals that India signed with foreign countries, Modi said the country has discovered its inherent strength and strengthened its institutions, which prompted developed nations to come forward and sign deals with India.
He also said that even after Independence, some people ensured that the colonial mindset remained for their own benefits.
"No country would have done trade deals with us had we not discovered our inherent strength and strengthened our institutions. Because of this, developed nations have come forward to sign trade deals (with India)," he said.
Modi also said that even after Independence, India was unable to break free from the mentality of slavery, for which the country is still paying the price.
"The latest example of this can be seen in the ongoing discussions on trade deals. Some people are shocked – ‘what has happened, how did this happen? Why are developed countries so eager to do trade deals with India?’ The answer is – a confident India is emerging from despair and frustration," he said.
Over the long span of history, centuries of slavery had instilled a feeling of inferiority, while the ideology imported from other countries deeply ingrained in society the notion that Indians were uneducated and subservient, the prime minister said.
"If the country was still mired in the despair of the pre-2014 era, counted among the 'Fragile Five', and gripped by policy paralysis, who would strike a trade deal with us?
"Over the past 11 years, a new surge of energy has flowed into the nation's consciousness. India is now striving to reclaim its lost potential," Modi said.
The prime minister also said that due to the recent series of reforms initiated by his government, the world's most powerful nations are now coming forward to sign trade deals with India.
"There was a time when India was only a consumer of new technology. But now we are not just developing them, but also setting standards," he said.
The prime minister also said that India's digital public infrastructure has become a subject of global discussion today, and every move India makes is closely watched and analysed across the world.
"The AI Summit was a clear example of this," he said.
The government's 'Viksit Bharat by 2047' is not a political slogan but an effort to correct the mistakes of the previous Congress governments by making India self-reliant, he said.
“So far, in every industrial revolution, India and the Global South largely remained followers, but in this age of artificial intelligence (AI), India is not only participating but is also shaping it. India now has its own AI startup ecosystem,” Modi said.
He also said the world is astonished that India, where around 30 million families lived in darkness until 2014, has now risen to become one of the top countries in solar power capacity.
India, where many cities had no hope of improving their public transport system, has now become the country with the world's third-largest Metro network, Modi said.
“The Indian Railways was known only for chronic delays and sluggish speeds, yet semi-high-speed connectivity like Vande Bharat and Namo Bharat has now become possible,” he said.
Nation-building never happens through short-term thinking; it is shaped by a long-term vision, patience and timely decisions, the prime minister added.
