Saeed Anwar - The magnificence, magic and mayhem of his 194

Without supporting the statement that Cricket in the 90s was much different to what is today with sufficient evidence would be putting forth a random view or unsubstantiated claim.

It's only when you say that the game in the 90s was perhaps as different to the one in the 2020s as is a regular over from one in the powerplay that one perhaps begins to appreciate the difference. 

In another sense, simply put, a single or two taken off a no-ball was how cricket was back then whilst a six off a free-hit is a standard imprint of contemporary cricket.

There weren't too many occasions where teams would put up a 300 plus total back then. But in the current, batting-dominated age, an ODI total minus a 300-330 plus on the board on a good wicket is largely seen as a disappointing act or perhaps an act of failure.

That's not to say that batters didn't go berserk; Lara hit his 169, the best ODI score for the Prince, back in the day, and Ganguly hit a 183 in an ODI too. And Gary Kirsten hit a famous 188 in the Wills 1996 World Cup.

But there weren't any Rohit Sharma 'go-out-there-and-hit-them-out-of-the-park' style knocks.

Not a single batter in the nineties came close to scoring a double ton in an ODI barring one.

The one, who came mightily close to touching what was back then, considered an almost invincible thing to do.

So when on May 21, 1997, when Saeed Anwar blasted - not caressed bowlers - on his way to 194, ODI cricket touched a new peak of sorts.

He authored a prestigious chapter in the annals of the game. The sort of chapter that many would simply give up experiencing trembling hands.

There were several teams that on a bad day simply failed to put together a 190-odd score. Yet, here was Saeed Anwar, in the scorching heat of Chennai's M.A Chidambaram stadium, who scored what was back then the highest individual score by any bat in one-day internationals.

Though truth be told, just as important as the statistical magnitude of the score was the occasion in which it came and also the opponents against whom Pakistan's great batter reached his milestone.

In an important day-nighter of the Independence Cup, featuring two great sub-continental sides - India and Pakistan - one with a Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly and Kambli on the one hand, and the other with Afridi, Ijaz, Rameez and Inzamam on the other, Saeed Anwar chose a perfect occasion to stand on the top of a glittering ensemble of talents.

That his 194, which eventually helped Pakistan put on a mountain of 327 runs, wasn't the only great aspect of Anwar's achievement. Rather the very fact that the stellar hundred came off just 146 deliveries served as a reminder of sorts that batsmen in an age, where cricket was about a sense of conservatism, where it was about self-preservation, could easily break loose. 

That he broke loose in some style and pomp was evident in the way Anwar clubbed five sixes. That he hit one each against Prasad and Joshi that went nearly eight to ten rows into the stands, was a firm signal that Pakistan were here in India to engage in a batting rout.

That's pretty much how it turned out to be in the end.

The slashes through the offside on deliveries carrying too much width, the severity against Venkatesh Prasad, in particular, the smashing straight drives on Kumble that eschewed the silky touch for ruthlessness, the dancing down the track to Sunil Joshi exhibiting the rhythm and alacrity of a ballerina on stage, Saeed Anwar was mayhem and magic.

He was the disruptor and the crowd puller. The warlord and the ultimate victor.

Never bothered for a second that his batting partner, Afridi was departed much too early that day, with the score reading just 8, Anwar took it upon himself to play the enforcer; reached his fifty inside the first fourteen overs.

Even when India fought back just a touch by removing Ramiz Raja inside the 19th over, with the score reading 97 for two, Saeed Anwar didn't cow down. 

Make no mistake, at that point in the contest, Anwar was also down on the ground facing cramps, a phenomenon that continued to perturb the left-hander for much of the course of that ODI.

But the big shots didn't dry up, nor did the single-minded objective to put the Indian bowlers to the sword.

Arguably speaking, the shot of the day, not a mammoth six nor a muscled hit over deep extra cover or long on either, came exactly on the fourth delivery of the twenty-second over.

As Robin Singh charged in with his medium pace to the left-hander, Anwar simply opened the face of the bat, though at the very last moment, angling the ball toward extra cover for a four.

He didn't use his otherwise charismatic footwork; he simply stayed where he was, absolutely still on the crease to execute a delightful boundary, light as a feather.

At the halfway mark, with the score at 133 for the loss of two, Anwar, in visible discomfort to go for the big hits or heaves, decided to put on an exhibition of glorious gap finding. Hence came the late cuts behind the third man boundary on Sachin, soon after which he'd simply glide one by Singh to the fine leg for a single collecting a famous hundred.

But even then, one didn't know that a further ninety four runs were to be hit, rather belted, India utterly unsuspecting of the carnage that was still to come.

In the 32nd over, he swept Sunil Joshi past square leg for a boundary- Pakistan were already 173 at that stage with Ijaz at the other end.

Then when he executed a powerful square cut for four off the backfoot to Robin Singh on the first ball of the 33rd over, he didn't just remind the uninspiring Indian bowlers of the dangers of offering width; Saeed Anwar climbed yet another important peak in his ODI career, in going past what had, until then, been the highest-score by a Pak batsman in an ODI against India: the 119 by Javed Miandad.

With the score at 206 for 2 after 37 overs, one saw Saeed Anwar on his feet again. The cramps had hurt him, though could do little to upset his desire to keep batting.

On the fourth ball of the fortieth over, Anwar, down on his feet, picked a length ball from Kumble and sent it flying into the stands for a towering six. 

Inzamam, a much more powerful striker of the ball than Anwar, could only stand and applaud the sorcery he was evidencing from the other end.

A six followed the next delivery.

And the very next delivery was again carted for a huge half a dozen, the ball travelling an even bigger distance over deep mid-wicket boundary. Kumble or no Kumble, leg spin or off-spin, fast pace or medium fast, it just didn't bother Saeed Anwar who, despite being struck by cramps, kept hitting them and pushing the crowds further to the edge of their seats.

Such a brutal onslaught had only been seen from the blazing bats of a Sir Viv or Javed Miandad or from a Haynes back in the day, but this was an imperious Saeed Anwar, determined to script his moment of the game underneath the glowing evening skies of what was Madras back then, not Chennai!

Kumble's final delivery of the 41st over, a big full toss, too was deposited to the boundary.

By that time, it was clear that it was Saeed Anwar versus all of India; the eleven on the field, the nearly 10,000 strong crowd assembled the Chepauk and tens of millions watching live proceedings from their homes or the streets of Madras with all of of their energies sapped by the carnage that was put on a show.

Anwar ultimately departed on 194, as Ganguly and Tendulkar combined an effort to plot the downfall that the team so desperately wanted.

Though, by that time all damage had been done. There was no way that India were going to get the hang of the contest having been pushed comfortably to the backfoot.

Saeed Anwar's record stood for thirteen long years and even today, twenty-three years since the day of its inception remains as one of the finest exhibitions of modern-day attacking batting, the likes of which would draw rich applauses even from a Kohli, Babar, Rohit and Gayle.