Top 10 most brutal innings in Test cricket

6. Adam Gilchrist (204* vs South Africa, Australia in South Africa 2001)

This was a special effort. No team can ask for anything better when their wicket-keeper can score a double hundred (not-out) against a South African bowling attack. Hayden and Martyn also scored tonnes in the same innings, and helped Australia put 652 on the board as their first innings total. The man of the match wicket-keeper hit 19 fours and 8 sixes in his innings which had a strike rate of over 95. Those many runs scored at that pace can surely hurt the opposition, and it did. Australia won by a huge margin- an innings and 360 runs.

The Aussies had reached 650 early in the second day, taking only 146 overs to do so. Gilchrist hit 4 huge sixes off Nicky Boje’s bowling, 3 of them were over his favourite mid-wicket area. Martyn and Gilchrist were once again involved in a huge partnership of 317 that came at a healthy scoring rate, consuming only 377 balls. This took the game away completely from the Proteas, who could not come up with a single score of 50-plus in the two innings that they batted.