Australia's wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist made the record for the fastest double century in Test cricket against South Africa in 2002. He scored 200 runs in just 212 balls. He would not have thought that this record would be broken in a few weeks. But it happened and this feat was achieved by New Zealand all-rounder Nathan Astle. Before the start of T20, he played the most explosive innings in the history of Test cricket. Astle made the record for the fastest double century in Tests by scoring 200 runs in just 153 balls, which no one has been able to break till date. India's stormy opener Virender Sehwag came close to this record 4 times but could not break it.

Astle's birthday is on 15 September and on this special occasion we are going to tell you about his story.

The record has not been broken for 22 years, Sehwag failed 4 times

Nathan Astle played a historic innings of 222 runs in 168 balls against England in 2002. At that time, the era of T20 had not even started and there was no trend of playing fast. Then Astle scored a double century in just 153 balls. It has been 22 years since Astle's historic innings played in Christchurch, New Zealand.

It is the era of T20 and batsmen have also started playing fast, despite this no cricketer has been able to break this record. However, during this time many batsmen reached Astle's record.

From India's side, Virender Sehwag came close to achieving Astle's record four times. Sehwag tried the most in 2004, when he scored a double century against Pakistan in 222 balls. After this, he tried again in 2006 and 2008. During this, he took 182 balls once and 194 balls the second time to score a double century.

Sehwag's last attempt was in 2009 when he came very close, but missed it by just 15 balls.

This time he faced 168 balls to score a double century against Sri Lanka. Apart from Sehwag, England's Ben Stokes came closest to Astle's record. He scored a double century in 163 balls in the Cape Town Test against South Africa in 2016.

This is how the team's honor was saved

In 2002, Nathan Astle could not save New Zealand from defeat at home with his innings, but he definitely saved its honour. Actually, New Zealand won the toss in this match and invited England to bat. England scored 228 runs in the first innings, in response to which New Zealand's team collapsed at 147 runs.

England scored 468 runs in the second innings.

Half of New Zealand's team, which came out to chase 550 runs, had gone to the pavilion at 242 runs and a big defeat was knocking at the door. Then Astle played a historic innings of 222 runs in 168 balls, on the basis of which New Zealand managed to score 451 runs. However, in the end it had to face defeat by 98 runs.

Surprised by retiring before the World Cup

Nathan Astle is counted among the best all-rounders. In his Test career, he scored 4702 runs in 81 matches at an average of 37 and also managed to take 51 wickets.

In his ODI career, he played 223 matches in which he scored 7090 runs at an average of 35 and also managed to take 99 wickets. There was also a consideration of making him the captain of the team but due to his bad behavior, he was not given this responsibility. In 2007, just a few weeks before the World Cup, Astle surprised everyone by suddenly retiring. He had said that he did not have any motivation left to play cricket.