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A brand new shot
Wisden CricInfo staff - March 7, 2002

Douglas Marillier's matchwinning innings of 56 (off 24) balls was not mere slogging, but an exhibition in masterful improvisation. Especially memorable was the way he played Zaheer Khan – repeatedly striding towards off, turning 180 degrees and hoicking the ball over the wicketkeeper's head – on one occasion, to third man. All his boundaries in the fine-leg region came off just this stroke; there was nothing Zaheer could have done. He bowled full, on a good length and just short; Marillier just kept bludgeoning him. (He faced 14 good-length balls and hit 34 runs off them.) Marillier's first three scoring strokes were all neatly improvised boundaries to the third-man region and his only six was a fabulous swipe off a fullish ball from Zaheer that sailed over the square-leg boundary. His best cricketing stroke was probably his inside-out cover-drive off Kumble, but in the end, it's the hoick-over-keeper that will remain the lasting image of this match.

Amit Varma is assistant editor of Wisden.com India.

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