A slice of history for Jean
Garden Route Badgers captain and Plett native Jean du Plessis last week scored a double hundred and a hundred in the same match; an achievement so unique that only two other cricketers have ever achieved the same feat in South African first-class cricket.
Du Plessis joins the likes of Adam
Bacher and Herschelle Gibbs, who both wrote their names into the history books in the 1996/97 season. Bacher scored 210 and 112* for Transvaal against Griqualand West in Kimberley, while Gibbs scored 200* and 272 for South Africa vs India A in Nagpur.
The 24-year-old Du Plessis is the first batsman to achieve the feat in the Western Cape, and only the second to do it in first-class cricket on South African soil (Gibbs achieved the feat in India).
A first double century
What makes the double century in particular extra special for Du Plessis, a Glenwood House alumnus, is that it is his first ever. He reached his double century on day two of last week's CSA Four-day Series Division 2 fixture against Eastern Cape Iinyathi at the Recreation Ground in Oudtshoorn. As captain, he did so having dug his side out of a significant hole on the first day, where SWD were two wickets down with only one run on the board. "I was really nervous, because as a captain when you've chosen to bat first and then you find yourselves 1-2, you begin to feel very uncertain about your decision," Du Plessis told KPH this week. But, as he recalls, the biggest hurdle was just getting through the initial phase of pressure which he did with the help of Matt Christensen. The latter fell for 32 with SWD on
100-3, and to the crease strode the experienced Kelly Smuts with whom Du Plessis put on a 229-run partnership for the fourth wicket.
Making things easy
"Kelly made it really easy for me to just be able to rotate the strike. He batted really positively and scored runs at a good rate, which made a big impact on how I could go about things." One of the big hurdles that Du Plessis had to tackle was making a mental switch in his approach. "There's something different about the phase of your innings between 100 and 200. We tend to get comfortable once we reach a century, and don't really push on, so fighting through that mindset was tough," he said. But, Du Plessis took it run by run.
Another big hurdle was when he surpassed his previous best first-class score of 162 notout against Border in 2020. When asked if it ever dawned on him that a double century would be likely, Du Plessis couldn't give an answer, but he did recall a conversation with his coach, Gurshwin Rabie, before the start of play. "Coach came up to me and said, 'Today is a great day to score a double century', so I guess he planted that seed in my head which helped me believe it was possible the closer I got."
The rest of the game
Du Plessis fell for 203 in the first innings, 10 runs shy of breaking the first-class record of 212 at the Recreation Ground. "I only found out about that afterwards, s, but I guess I made up p for it with another record ecord the next day," he quipped. pped. After bowling Iinyathi hi out for 186, the Badgers had a 254-run lead to work k with when batting in their second nd innings.
"We knew that if we batted at the rate the rest of the game ame had gone at, we'd have a good lead d on the board by tea [on Day 3]. But ut we did ramp things up a bit after lunch."
Du Plessis' second innings score of 101 not out was enough nough to cement his place in history.
"I didn't realise that t there were only two that had ad done it before me, and nd only found out on Monday ay [6 November] about the record. It's really incredible, sure, but I couldn't have done it without my teammates," tes," Du Plessis said, calling ng it a near-perfect weekend d for his team too. "We had two other centuries ries [Smuts and Blayde Capell] as well as a 10-wicket-haul 0- for the match [Thomas Kaber]. er]. So to only highlight my achievement would uld be a shame because the team had such a great game."
The Badgers ultimately ately thumped Iinyathi by 283 runs, and are now enjoying some respite as they prepare re for their next CSA Four-day Series Division sion 2 game, against Eastern Storm at the e Recreation Ground from 23 to 26 November. mber. One thing's for certain though, last weekend will live long in the memory of Jean du Plessis.