mind went back 30 years. During the 1987 World Cup, Dave Houghton of Zimbabwe played a similar innings in Hyderabad, when he single-handedly defied the New Zealand team and nearly guided Zimbabwe to a famous win. I may reveal now that the very first article I ever penned was one titled: "A Hobson's choice: Which innings do you choose?" comparing the then (and for that matter, now) three classics: Viv Richards' 189 not out, Kapil Dev's 175 not out and Houghton's 142. Over 200 articles later, I still have that piece with me, unpublished but treasured.

I started thinking that I should do an anecdotal piece on such innings, which I term as the "burning deck innings". There is a lot of magic in watching those innings that failedtheir leading batsmen, visited New Zealand earlier in the year for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy. In the first match, New Zealand put up a good, if not formidable, total of 286. Stoinis, playing only his second ODI match, was the best bowler, with a good spell of 3 for 49. Trent Boult, Tim Southee and Lockie Ferguson ripped through the Australian top order and the innings was in shambles at 54 for 5 when Stoinis walked in. The next wicket fell at 67 and visions of a sub-100 total cropped up.

Stoinis went on to play the innings of his life. He had reasonable support from an uncharacteristically patient James Faulkner and a belligerent Pat Cummins. Stoinis added 81, 48, 30 and 54 for the last four wickets. The last