Indian schoolboy,Dhanawade, breaches 1000-run mark in an innings

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Maharashtra schoolboy Pranav Dhanawade rewrote the record books on Tuesday, hammering an epic 1009 not out in an inter-school cricket tournament to register the highest individual score in an innings in any form of the game.

The 15-year-old smashed 129 fours and clobbered 59 sixes in his staggering 323-ball knock played over two days before his team, KC Gandhi School, declared their innings on a staggering 1465 for two.

An admirer of India’s limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dhanawade’s monumental knock drew praise from batting great Sachin Tendulkar.

“Congrats #PranavDhanawade on being the first ever to score 1000 runs in an innings. Well done and work hard. You need to scale new peaks!” tweeted the former India captain.

Dhanawade, who opened the innings against Arya Gurukul School, had gone past Arthur Collins’ 628 not out, the previous highest in minor cricket scored in 1899 in England, on Monday.

The son of an autorickshaw driver, Dhanawade had also gone past the highest individual score by an Indian in minor cricket, a record previously held by Prithvi Shaw who scored 546 in the Harris Shield in 2013-14.

“I have always been a big-hitter,” Dhanawade told the Hindustan Times after Monday’s play.

“When I started I never thought about breaking the record. The focus was never that. I just played my natural game, which is to attack from the word go.

“After reaching 300, my coach Harish Sharma told me to play on. I did not know of the world record, but we had the Indian record (Shaw’s 546) in mind.”

(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)