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The Greatest ODI Innings of All Time

Flem274*

123/5
Hayden's 181* on a broken toe sticks in the mind.

It was the dawn of jamodis so Bond and Vettori were both rested and Oram had the broken finger so was out. The tri-series prior had all 3 sides rotating players every game and John Bracewell copped it in our press for bluntly stating he didn't give a **** about playing the best team every game and he wanted to build depth.

Hayden's knock was immense. Several levels above that day. Heh, looking at the scorecard he would be castigated today for scoring nearly 200 runs too slowly and not accelerating. SR only 109.

It isn't the best but I'll never forget it.
 

CricketFan90s

State Vice-Captain
Most Important ODI Innings from 1971-2001(First 30 Years of ODI Cricket)
1) Lloyd C H 102 WI vs Aus, 1975, Lord's
2) Richards IVA 138* WI vs Eng, 1979, Lord's
3) Gower D I 158 Eng vs NZ, 1983, Woolloongabba
4) Kapil Dev N 175* Ind vs Zim, 1983, Nevill Ground
5) Richards IVA. 189* WI vs Eng, 1984, Old Trafford
6) Lara B C 153 WI vs Pak, 1993, Sharjah
7) Lara B C 169 WI vs SL, 1995, Sharjah
8) de Silva P A 107* SL vs Aus, 1996, Gaddafi Stadium
9) Saeed Anwar 194 Pak vs Ind, 1997, M A Chidambaram Stadium
10) Jayasuriya S T 189 SL vs Ind, 2000, Sharjah
 

Godard

U19 Vice-Captain
I mean, everybody has their criteria, but to me the game importance can be one too. Strength of opposition to me tho is far more important. Zimbabwe games should be seriously considered for greatest knocks ever.

Aside from Viv, the contenders for best ever innings are Lloyd 75 and DeSilva 96 being final knocks.
What about Kohli’s 133. Flat track yes(and I’m not saying its as good as Viv‘a 189) but came in a tri series tournament, where Ind had to chase an impossible target(considering the overs) to stay alive, and as a young rookie he did bash the world’s pre-eminent LOI bowler at his peak(at the time), that too in the death overs. Also no one played half as big a role as him in that(Gambhir and Raina had important innings, but of far less importance, I.e not as big as G Smith maybe in that 434 chase)
 

AndrewB

International Vice-Captain
Kapil 175 for me. Such big scores were a rarity in ODIs but for me the bigger thing is the context. For India had they lost that match vs Zim, it was curtains.
It always seems to get called a must-win game for India, but in fact as long as they'd still won their next match against Australia they were still guaranteed a semi-final spot (assuming WI didn't suddenly get thrashed by Zimbabwe .
(Of course, you could argue that if they'd crumbled to 60 all out against Zimbabwe, they'd have struggled to pick themselves up for the next match.)
 

subshakerz

International Coach
What about Kohli’s 133. Flat track yes(and I’m not saying its as good as Viv‘a 189) but came in a tri series tournament, where Ind had to chase an impossible target(considering the overs) to stay alive, and as a young rookie he did bash the world’s pre-eminent LOI bowler at his peak(at the time), that too in the death overs. Also no one played half as big a role as him in that(Gambhir and Raina had important innings, but of far less importance, I.e not as big as G Smith maybe in that 434 chase)
I rate that innings highly too
 

Bolo.

International Captain
Eh. All this talk about context, pressure, opposition quality, important matches, matchwinning stuff. Blah blah blah. The best innings is one nobody else would be able to replicate*







*There is a small chance that this is less of a contrarian take than an attempt to shamelessly slip Shane Watson's 185*(96) chasing 230 vs Bangers into this thread. I wouldn't call it one of the greatest innings, but it really is hard to see anyone outperforming him as a replacement in this match.
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
Viv's innings had a decent attack, came in at an impossibly bad situation, scored mostly with the tail at more than a run a ball in slow scoring era, scored a huge score with a major percentage of overall total, and was the only one with a notable score in the match. Plus some awesome shots that are still replayed today. Ticks so many boxes that there is no point comparing with another.
Except it was in a JAMODI.

His knock in the 1979 World Cup final was more significant.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
I am also a bit confused regarding which innings was better Clive Lloyd 102 vs Vivs 189*
It depends on how much importance you place on context and quality of attack vs percentage of total score and doing all that with the tail. I'm with Days of Grace on this one. Viv's innings was astonishing, but it was only part of a 3 match series that was just an hors d'ouevres before the main business of the test series. Lloyd's innings meant that his side won the WC Final. And Australia's attack was way superior to the England guys that Viv faced at that stage of their careers.
 
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