Brian Lara has handpicked Yashasvi Jaiswal as one of the rare talents capable of breaking his iconic record for the highest individual score in Test cricket - the 400 not out against England.
Renowned for his ability to play marathon innings, Brian Lara first etched his name in history with a knock of 375 against England in 1994.
It was a record that stood for a decade before Lara reclaimed it in 2004 with his unbeaten 400, still the highest individual score in Test cricket.
The long-standing milestone returned to the spotlight recently after Wiaan Mulder opted to declare with himself batting unbeaten on 367 in the second Test against Zimbabwe.
Wiaan Mulder’s decision to declare while unbeaten on 367 against Zimbabwe has reignited the debate over whether Brian Lara’s monumental 400 not out in Test cricket will ever be surpassed.
Former England captain Michael Atherton, who was on the field when Lara scored 375, revealed on the Sky Sports Podcast that the West Indian legend believes the record is destined to fall and sees Yashasvi among the frontrunners.
“I spoke to Brian Lara on the eve of his first record-breaking innings, his 375, and I said do you expect somebody to break it? He said somebody will definitely break it because of the pace at which the modern players score,” Atherton said.
“I asked who is more likely to do it? He mentioned Yashasvi Jaiswal and Harry Brook, he thought perhaps they were likely to have a crack at it," the Englishman added.
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The 23-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal, who plays for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, is just 21 Tests into his international career but has shown that he can play long knocks, having made two double hundreds in Tests already.
He also has a top score of 265 in first-class cricket, having played the knock to help West Zone beat South Zone in the final of the 2022 Duleep Trophy.
Yashasvi, who scored 171 on his red-ball debut against West Indies in 2023, enjoyed a breakthrough year in Tests in 2024.
He was named in the ICC Men's Test Team of the Year 2024 after scoring 1478 runs at an average of 54.74 and a strike rate of almost 70.
The powerful left-hander hit 36 sixes in 2024, a new world record for most maximums in Tests in a calendar year. His tally of 1478 runs in a year is also the second most by an Indian and the most by an Indian opener.
He ended 2024 as the second-highest scorer overall behind England’s Joe Root, who scored 1556 runs from 17 matches.
Picking up from where he left off last year, Yashasvi Jaiswal has continued to flourish in the red-ball format during the ENG vs IND 2025 Test series.
He scored 101 off 144 balls in the first Test and then made 87 from 107 deliveries in the first innings of the second match in Birmingham.
Yashasvi is the highest-ranked Indian batter in the ICC Test rankings at world No. 3 and has amassed 2018 runs in 21 matches at an average of 53.10 so far.
The opening batter has hit five centuries and 11 fifties, and recently became the joint-fastest to score 2000 Test runs for India along with the Royals head coach Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag.
