Goa's Snehal Kauthankar and Kashyap Bakle etched their names in the annals of Ranji Trophy history during their match against Arunachal Pradesh during their Plate Group match in Porvorim, Goa, on Thursday.
Kauthankar (314*) and Bakle (300*) made history when they stitched up a mammoth partnership of 606 runs (in 448 balls) for the third wicket, before the declaration came at the score of 727 for 2. Goa have a 643-run first-innings lead with two days of cricket still to play.
Kauthankar and Bakle's partnership is second only to 624 runs for the third wicket, achieved by Sri Lankans Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene during a Test match against South Africa in Colombo, SSC in July 2006.
According to statistician Mohandas Meno, 'in October 2016, Maharashtra's Swapnil Gugale (351*) and Ankit Bawne (258*) put together an unbeaten 594 runs for the third wicket at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. However, skipper Gugale decided to declare the innings while they were still 30 runs short of the world record. In a later press conference, Gugale admitted that he was unaware of the record then and had he known, he would have opted to continue batting to achieve it. Now the above three partnerships occupy the top three positions in all first-class cricket history!'
An aggressive batter, Kauthankar, 29, scored his career-best score on reaching his maiden triple hundred in a mere 205 deliveries, his innings inclusive of 43 boundaries and four towering sixes as the Arunachal fielders were sent on a leather hunt.
Kauthankar quickfire knock places him third in the all-time list of fastest First-Class triple hundreds by Indians.
Hyderabad's Tanmay Agarwal set the record for the fastest First-Class triple century last year, reaching the landmark in just 147 balls, a knock which eclipsed the previous 39-year record held by Indian legend Ravi Shastri.
South Africa's Marco Marais scored a 191-ball triple ton against Eastern Province in 2017 to become the second fastest to 300 in First Class cricket.
Earlier, Kauthankar's 200 came in just 146 balls, making it the fourth-fastest double-century in Ranji Trophy history.
Kauthankar had smashed his previous best of 250 runs just last week against Mizoram.
After lunch, Kauthankar's partner Kashyap Bakle then brought up his triple hundred in 269 deliveries (39 fours and two sixes), making his the third-fastest triple ton by an Indian in First-Class cricket.
This match also marked only the second time in Ranji history that two batters have scored triple hundreds in the same innings, the first being Tamil Nadu's WV Raman and Arjun Kripal Singh in 1989 against Goa.
Goa's total of 727/2 now stands as the second-highest in the Ranji Trophy Plate division, only behind Meghalaya's mammoth 826 against Sikkim in 2018, and ranks as the ninth-highest across the entire Ranji Trophy competition.
