Martin Guptill hits highest World Cup score
March 21, 2015 11:22 am
New Zealand’s Martin Guptill made the highest score in World Cup history by smashing 237 not out against West Indies in Wellington.
The 28-year-old’s 163-ball innings featured 11 sixes and 24 fours and beat the 215 made by West Indies’ Chris Gayle earlier in the tournament.
Rohit Sharma’s 264 is the only higher score in one-day internationals.
Guptill hit 137 from his last 52 balls to help his side post 393-6, the best total in a World Cup knockout match.
Guptill, who made a century in his last innings against Bangladesh, became the fifth man to make an ODI double hundred.
His effort is also the fourth highest score in all List A cricket - limited-overs games that are not Twenty20s.
Opener Guptill, who was dropped on four by Marlon Samuels, already held the record for the best ODI score by a New Zealander, having made an unbeaten 189 against England in 2013.
But this effort, played out in front of a raucous Wellington crowd in a home quarter-final, ensured his place in World Cup and New Zealand cricket history.
The right-hander, who began by driving the first ball of the innings for four, heaved six after six over the leg side boundary after reaching his century.
The 10th of his sixes went out of the ground and landed on the roof of the Cake Tin stadium.
Guptill, who made his second hundred from only 41 balls, beat the previous best World Cup knockout score of 149 made by Australia’s Adam Gilchrist.
Gayle became the first man to make a World Cup double hundred against Zimbabwe in Canberra on 24 February.
But his record lasted only 25 days, with Gayle congratulating Guptill on the field when the New Zealander surpassed his score. - BBC
