HAIL THE HEROES: Mohammed Shaibaaz and Bodepalli Manoj Kumar being chaired and cheered by their schoolmates for their mammoth record-breaking performance. — Photo: H. Satish

HYDERABAD : It is a day that Bodepalli Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaaz will remember for a long, long time as the entire staff and students of St. Peters High School felicitated the two, who had only 24 hours earlier set a World record with an unbroken 721-run stand for their school against St. Phillips High School in the inter-school (under-13) cricket tournament at the Parade Grounds (Secunderabad).

For the record, Manoj hit an unbeaten 320 (127 balls, 46x4) and Shaibaaz 324 (116 balls, 57x4) and St. Phillips team was skittled out for only 21 on Wednesday. The partnership eclipsed the 664-run stand between Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli.

The beaming faces showed that everyone wanted to share the moment of glory.

The school had got its affiliation only this year. All the cricketers of the school get free education and they have just one net on the premises.

The bubbly Shaibaaz said that his inspiration came from the double century by another schoolboy G.H. Vihari a day before. "When we read about that, we thought why not go for it," he said.

The school coach Harish Kumar said that Shaibaaz had never opened before. "Just before the match, he came to me and said that he would try for a double century. I warned him that if he doesn't score a century, I will drop him for the next match!"

Now the coach will have to rethink his outlook for Manoj and Shaibaaz have scripted a new chapter in cricketing history.

"It all happened in a span of four hours. We won the toss and just went for the strokes from the word go. Everything clicked," said the two young cricketers. The two umpires, A. Venugopal and M. Kumar, said they had not seen batting of such kind in any form of cricket before. "We had difficulty in retrieving the ball for there were in all 103 fours but fortunately no sixes," the two umpires said.

The shining mementoes and cash incentives from the school management (Rs. 5,000 each) and Jampana Pratap, local councillor, (Rs. 10,000 each) could well be the first of the many laurels to come the way of the two batsmen.

Unfortunately, this piece of cricketing history was not recorded on camera. "I kept watching and before I could realise it, they had completed triple centuries," recalls an excited Imtiaz Abdullah Tumbi, Shaibaaz's father, who was at the venue.

Kudos from Kambli

Meanwhile, Vinod Kambli, who held the previous record with Sachin Tendulkar, in a chat with The Hindu said that the most difficult part during such a long partnership was trying to not get out.

"It is a stupendous task to score 721 in just 40 overs. It takes lots of courage and determination and I am happy that two Indian boys broke the record. I was pleasantly surprised to read about it this morning and am delighted for the two young cricketers. My only advice to them is to treat this as the first step in the long, grinding journey of what should be a successful career," he said.

"I remember how Sachin and I repeatedly ignored the messages from our coach Ramakant Achrekar to declare the innings in 1987-88. Luckily, there was no such problem for the Hyderabadis," he quipped.

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