Who is the current batsmen with most number of double centuries? (17 Aug 2001)

He started his Test career with a pair against India at Chandigarh in 1990. In his first six Test innings, his scores were 0,0,0,1,0,0. In 80 Test innings, he has failed to score 16 times. No, this is not a No 11 in the category of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Danny Morrison or Courtney Walsh that we are talking about. The subject of discussion is Sri Lankan opening batsman Marvan Atapattu. Over the last decade, despite the dismal start to his Test career and the number of times he has failed to score or has been dismissed for a single digit score (15 times), his overall figures make for pretty impressive reading. He has scored 2452 runs in 45 Tests at an average of 34.05. To a major extent, this has been achieved because of his penchant for tall scores. Six centuries in so many Tests may not be an impressive statistic. But what is a really remarkable statistic is the fact that four of these six centuries are double hundreds. Indeed, no batsman currently playing the game has got as many double centuries.

Atapattu's first double came against Zimbabwe at Kandy in 1997-98 when he scored 223. The second was also scored against Zimbabwe, an unbeaten 216 at Bulawayo in 1999-2000. A third followed later the same season when he scored 207 not out against Pakistan at Kandy. And his fourth, an unbeaten 201, was hit against England at Galle in 2000-2001. Few batsmen would have had such a roller coaster of a ride during their career as this 30-year-old elegant stroke player.

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