Harry Brook Hits Fastest ODI Double Century as England Post 429
England captain Harry Brook smashed 202 off 116 balls against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi, the fastest double century in one-day international history.
Harry Brook, captain of England’s one-day cricket team, scored 202 runs against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Thursday. It was the first double century by an England batter in a one-day international and the fastest ever recorded in the format. His innings carried England to 429 for 4 from their 50 overs, which several outlets reported as the highest one-day international total ever made in Pakistan.
One-day internationals, or ODIs, are cricket’s 50-over format. Each team bats for up to 50 overs, roughly 300 legal deliveries. In a sport where a single batter scoring 100 runs, a “century,” counts as a major achievement, a double century is rare. Few players in the format’s 55-year history have managed one.
What happened
The match was the third game of a three-team ODI series hosted by Pakistan, with England and Sri Lanka as the visitors. According to the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport’s world governing body, both England and Sri Lanka had lost their opening games to Pakistan and arrived still looking for a first win.
England’s openers, Ben Duckett and Tom Banton, put on 74 for the first wicket before both were out in quick succession. Banton made 50 from 51 balls and Duckett 29. Brook then shared a stand of 159 for the third wicket with Joe Root, the former England Test captain, who made 69 from 66 balls. Agence France-Presse, in a report published by France 24, noted that Root became the first England batter to pass 8,000 ODI runs, doing so in his 197th match.
The final stretch turned the innings into a record. Brook and Will Jacks, an England all-rounder, added 185 runs for the fourth wicket from fewer than 80 balls, according to France 24 and the Indian outlet NewsX. Jacks finished unbeaten on 66, and England scored 156 runs in the last 10 overs, France 24 reported.
Brook needed 75 balls to reach his century and only 39 more to reach 200, according to a match report carried by Yahoo Sports. He survived a dropped catch late in the innings. The reports disagree on the exact score at the time: Yahoo Sports put it at 185, while NewsX said it came on the way to 192. Brook was caught off the final ball of the innings, bowled by the Sri Lankan seamer Janith Liyanage. He struck 21 fours and 10 sixes from 116 deliveries.
The records
The ICC described the innings as the fastest double century in ODI history. It narrowly beat the 117-ball double century that Shubman Gill, India’s captain, scored against the West Indies last month. Accounts differ slightly on the exact count. France 24 and Yahoo Sports said Brook reached 200 in 114 balls, while the ICC framed his full 116-ball innings as one ball quicker than Gill’s.
Brook’s score also replaced England’s previous ODI best, Ben Stokes’s 182 against New Zealand at The Oval in 2023. Other milestones cited by the outlets include:
- The 144 runs Brook scored in boundaries were the most by an England batter in a single ODI innings, according to the ICC.
- It was the highest ODI score by a batter who did not open the innings, Yahoo Sports reported.
- Brook became only the second player, after the West Indies’ Chris Gayle, to have scored a Test triple century, an ODI double century and a century in a Twenty20 international.
- England’s 429 for 4 was the team’s fourth-highest ODI total, according to the ICC, and its first 400-plus total in Pakistan.
Why it matters
The innings came two days after England lost to Pakistan on the same ground. According to Yahoo Sports, Brook asked his batters to play more aggressively after that defeat, and the response was immediate. The same report noted that Brook’s batting average as ODI captain, 56.04, is more than double his average when not leading the side.
The total also left Sri Lanka needing 430 to win, a target that would require one of the biggest successful chases in ODI history. The result of Sri Lanka’s reply was not available at the time of writing. England and Sri Lanka both came into Thursday without a win in the series, so the result matters for both teams’ hopes of progressing.
