Wellington, March 21 (IANS) New Zealand opener Martin Guptill, who smashed an unbeaten 237 off 163 balls against the West Indies in the cricket World Cup quarter-final here on Saturday, said his innings has not sunk in yet.
The 28-year-old hammered his way to the highest World Cup individual score and the second highest in one-day cricket history after Rohit Sharma’s 264.
“The 237 hasn’t really sunk in. We still have a lot of work to do, so can’t dwell too much on this,” said Guptill.
After getting to his century in 111 balls, Guptill went top-gear as he kept smashing the clueless West Indies bowlers to all parts of the Wellington Regional Stadium to hit 24 fours and 11 sixes en route to his double century.
The opener from Auckland credited Kane Williamson (33) and Ross Taylor (42) for setting up the platform, from where he could launch the onslaught.
“We had a couple of good partnerships early with Kane and Ross that really set the game up for us to explode at the end. We were trying to take each ball as it came and just keep rotating the strike. That’s the best way to create partnerships. We did that pretty well, it worked out for us at the end,” he said.
“After I got the hundred, I just thought I should probably hit a few boundaries. That was the quickest outfield I have actually played on here. We got value for shots today and happy to have got a few through the gaps. Let this win sink in tonight and then we will focus on the semi-final.”
New Zealand lock horns with South Africa on Tuesday at Eden Park, Auckland.
