Kevin Pietersen 186 vs India at Wankhede 2012

Faf du Plessis 110* vs Australia in Adelaide 2012

When your time is up, when death is inevitable, when the Grim Reaper is waiting out there in the dark ready to swing his scythe, there is no escaping it. Except Faf du Plessis did, back in 2012, with not one but eleven Grim Reapers desiring to give him the kiss of death. And ironically, du Plessis’ time was not over and it, in fact, had just begun - he was on debut. Walking in to bat at 45/4 on the eve of Day 4 on a slow and low Adelaide wicket where cracks and patches were aplenty, with 130 overs left to survive, the carpet had been laid for South Africa to embrace the afterlife. The then-debutant put his life on the line, batting 376 balls and 466 minutes to seal an improbable draw. The hundred we know is the score next to his name, but what made him get there were the several hundred deliveries that he’d left alone and hundreds more that he’d blocked. He zapped the Aussies into an alternate universe - one without an exit - where he batted and batted and batted and it wasn’t until 4:59 PM on Day 5 that the Aussies realized that it, in fact, was reality and not a nightmare. The Death Knell was heard at 5.00 PM, but inside the coffin was not South Africa, and instead Australia’s resilience. It was that day the cricketing world realized that du Plessis was a superhuman capable of cheating death.

Virat Kohli 133* vs Sri Lanka in Hobart 2012

I wandered with many possibilities but that Virat Kohli innings at the Bellerive Oval, on a chilly night in 2012, still sends shivers down my spine. It was audacious, it was proper carnage, and a reminder of what strong zeal and determination can do to one human being. To qualify for the finals, India had to better Sri Lanka by 25% in the game and with the kind of form they were in, it was laughable to suggest that they could do it. With nothing to lose, Kohli played the innings of his life, making Nuwan Kulasekara a joke, Lasith Malinga’s yorker a foundation to his flicks and of course, smashing the hell out of Thisara Perera. The greatest ever death bowler of our generation had been consigned worst-ever economy rate in an ODI innings. It was not only a game where he showed the world his level, but the way he used the powerplay to keep the 40-over bonus point mark in mind, ensured the arrival of KING KOHLI for whom a run-chase is a cakewalk. Eight years on, I haven’t seen a better ODI innings of the same audacity, and probably never will.

Steve Smith 141* vs England at the Gabba 2017

It’s the same old debate again - Kohli or Smith. Kohli’s 82* in Mohali against Australia in 2016 is as perfect a chase as I have ever seen but I have to hand it to the man who did it in the ‘real format’. But again, this decade has seen Smith put up one masterclass after the other so which one do you really pick. For me, there is only one innings that stands apart from every other one. In 2017, England decided to camp out in Australia for a good month before the Ashes actually started hoping to give the hosts a scare. And playing on a sticky Gabba wicket on Day 2 of the first Test, it appeared everything was going according to plan. Then in came Smith, with Australia at 30/2, and what followed deserves to be shown to any batsman who wants to play cricket. He started off by negotiating the new ball, followed it up by standing tall while wickets continued to tumble at the other end, barring the Marsh partnership, and concluded by a textbook approach whilst playing with the tail. And he managed to do all of this without giving the English, and I mean this literally, a sniff of his wicket. And that is when the English should have realized it was all over.

Brendon McCullum 302 vs India in Wellington 2014

There was magic in everything ‘Baz’ did for New Zealand cricket. It all started with India, the favourites, touring the North Island for a two-Test series in February 2014. McCullum, the T20 giant who smashed 158 runs in the first-ever IPL game, had scored a might 224 to help the hosts overcome India in Auckland. After the first half of the Wellington Test, the series lead was endangered as New Zealand begun their second innings with a 246-run trail. My heart had come to a standstill as I could see my Kiwis missing out on a series win. 127 runs hence, the Kiwi skipper, batting at 94, picked up the ball and slammed it over the cow corner fence to bring about his hundred. That was the moment when my fears took a backseat. Baz put up a 13-hour marathon, after the team was reduced to 94/5, still trailing by 152, that changed cricket in the nation forever. "As I step towards the boundary rope, I take a moment, look at the crowd, and I get it that they've come to see a bit of history,” read McCullum’s words in his autobiography. He stuck there, batting for more than two days, finding outstanding support in BJ Watling (124) and debutant Jimmy Neesham (137*). By the time he was at 298 (off 556), a rather measured innings, on Day 5, a series win for New Zealand was assured. And McCullum whisked a fierce cut deep backward point boundary off Zaheer Khan, trumping Martin Crowe’s 299, to become the first Kiwi to score a triple-century.

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