Wiaan Mulder, captaining South Africa for the first time in his 21st Test, smashed an unbeaten 367 off 334 balls against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo on Monday, the highest Test score by a South African, before declaring the innings just 33 runs short of Brian Lara’s world record of 400 set in 2004 at St John's, Antigua.
Resuming the day on 264, Mulder reached 300 and then powered through the next 67 runs in 37 balls, batting alongside No. 7 Kyle Verreynne and his innings marked multiple milestones.
He surpassed South Africa’s previous highest individual Test score of 311 by Amla, set against England at The Oval in 2012.
Mulder went past Len Hutton’s 364 and Garfield Sobers’ 365 before South Africa declared.
Only Brian Lara (400 and 375), Matthew Hayden (380), and Mahela Jayawardene (374) now sit above him on the list of highest individual Test scores.
His innings is now the fifth-highest individual score in Test history and the highest ever by a South African.
Mulder, 27, smashed 49 fours and 4 sixes at an astonishing strike rate of 109.88 — the best among all Test triple-centurions — as South Africa piled on 626 for 5 before declaring at lunch on the second day of the second Test.
He became only the second South African after Hashim Amla (311) to register a Test triple-century, reaching the milestone in just 297 balls — the second-fastest in Test cricket after Virender Sehwag’s 278-ball triple ton against South Africa in Chennai in 2008.
Mulder’s 367 is also the highest individual score by a batter in an away Test, surpassing Pakistan’s Hanif Mohammed (337 vs West Indies, 1958).
He became the 29th Test cricketer to score a triple century, the first South African captain to do so, and also recorded the highest aggregate in a single Test match by a South African batter — surpassing Graeme Smith’s 362 (277 and 85) against England at Edgbaston in 2003.
The Proteas all-rounder entered the Zimbabwe series under pressure, having failed to fire with the bat during South Africa’s World Test Championship final win over Australia at Lord’s, where captain Temba Bavuma sustained an injury that ruled him out of this series.