MERV Hughes was sweating and shirtless and bathing in kudos.

It was the Adelaide Oval dressing sheds, February 4th, 1989, stumps of day two in the fifth Test against the West Indies. And big Merv had just ripped off his highest Test score — an equal-parts entertaining and improbable 72 not out.

With his great mate and fellow Victorian Dean Jones (216) Hughes added 114 for the 9th wicket, his lusty blows the perfect complement to Jones’s crisp stroke-play. And after Australia amassed 515 in a series already lost 3-1, a series in which they’d been bludgeoned and battered by those brutal Windies pacemen, the Adelaide crowd fairly bayed. And that Australian dressing shed was a bubbling, happy place.

And then in walked The Don.

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Yes, Sir Donald Bradman had so enjoyed the brilliant batting of Jones that he approached the man to shake hands, and to talk of his innings. And thus there was talk of shop, batter to batter: shot selection, the wicket, the Windies pace attack. After 15 minutes they shook hands again, exchanged nods of mutual respect and bid each other good cheer.

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And then Bradman cast an eye towards Merv Hughes.

Hughes prepared himself for the plaudits. ‘Come on little fellah, bring it on,’ he thought. ‘Let’s hear it.’

“Merv Hughes — 72 not out in a Test match,” said the Don as the barest hint of a smile curled the corner of his mouth.

“Funny game, cricket.”

And then he walked out.

Bradman passed away five years before another Australian tailender, Jason Gillespie, ripped off an even more improbable Test innings. The Don would surely have seen the humour in it. Similarly when Gillespie talks today of that famous, unbeaten 201 — eleven years since Australia played a Test in Chittagong — his tongue just about pokes out his cheek.

“When I raised my bat for the hundred, people assumed it was for three figures,” says Gillespie. “The reality is that it was acknowledge my great mate Shane Warne’s best Test score of 99.

“I raised my bat towards the sheds and looked to the for some inspiration from the great man but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s out the back out having a fag.”

Was he?

“Ha! No!” laughs Gillespie. “I don’t know. That’s just for comic effect. You don’t want to ruin a good yarn with the truth!”

Ask Gillespie about it today and you’ll get the yarns he saves for speaking gig at cricket clubs. The ones in which he raises his bat not only for passing Warney’s 99 but also for passing 61 (Glenn McGrath), 71* (Damien Fleming) and Mark Waugh (153). And so on.

Yet Gillespie barely needs to embellish his tale. He couldn’t make it up. Any apocryphal elements — those bits that sound too good to be true — probably are true. It is Test cricket’s most improbable double-hundred. It remains arguably the most improbable innings ever played.

And along with the hilarity of it, you sense Bradman would have nodded to the powers of concentration it took to spend nearly 10 hours at the crease on the subcontinent.

Consider the innings’ bare bones: Gillespie — who heading into the Test match had scored 1017 Test runs at 15.41 and had never scored a century in any form of cricket — came in late on day one with Australia 1/67. When he finally departed, unbeaten, Australia were 4/581.

His 201 runs came off 425 balls in 574 minutes.

Australian cricketers Jason Gillespie (R) and Michael Hussey share a light moment during their incredible partnership. Source: News Corp Australia

With Mike Hussey (182) he added 320 for the third wicket. He outscored Bangladesh’s first innings by four runs.

It remains the greatest innings by a nightwatchman in Test history, eclipsing Mark Boucher’s 125 against Zimbabwe and Tony Mann’s 105 (against India in 1977).

And Gillespie is talking about it still.

“I like to have a bit of fun with it, tongue firmly in cheek,” he says “It’s a laugh. I’m sure people groan when I start mentioning it, and rightly so! But life’s about a bit of fun and not taking yourself too seriously.”

Yet this was a serious Test innings. Though the wicket was flat and the Bangladeshis popgun, Gillespie mined huge reservoirs of concentration and skill. Having Hussey at the other end helped.

“Yeah, the Huss played one of the great Test knocks. But he’s become sort of like Arthur Morris at the other end when Bradman got his last innings duck! Arthur was asked about whether he played in Bradman’s last Test. He said, yeah I was 180 not out at the other end!”

Gillespie had passed 150 when he felt it was time to spread his wings. He played a windy whoosh and was lucky to survive. Hussey strode down the wicket to berate him. “Huss has come down and said, ‘Dizzy, what are you doing mate? You’ll never be in this situation again, you’ll never get an opportunity to score a Test double-hundred ever again. Don’t throw it away.’

“And my ego was a little bit hurt. I was like, ‘Huss, I’m batting okay, mate! I’m 150-odd!’

“But by the time I’d left him mid-pitch and got back to my crease I worked out he was 100 per cent right. Reality dawned, and I pulled my head in. Good talk, Huss!”

And onwards he rolled, inexorably, to 197. When he leg-glanced left-armer Mohammed Rafique for the fine-leg fence for four he had amassed 201. He took off his helmet and raised his bat and looked upwards — is this happening?

Jason Gillespie celebrates his double century. Source: Getty Images

Ricky Ponting — whom Gillespie has comically run out some 71 overs previously — declared Australia’s innings over at 4/581. Gillespie went in. Then came out to bowl. First over, Warne dropped a pie at first slip. Tell us Gillespie hasn’t mined that for comedic purposes.

And so the text messages flowed in. Steve Waugh was equal part banter and praise. Ditto Mark Waugh. (Gillespie’s cricket club story today is that he wrote back to talking of the struggles to get past the 150s noting that Junior never had, with 153 his highest Test score). There was a fax from noted cricket lover John Howard, then prime minister, that Gillespie still has.

There followed a party on the roof of the team hotel in Chittagong. All the players, staff, selectors (Merv Hughes was one), sitting around on plastic seats, bunch of beers, ruminating on what it could all possibly mean.

Some months later Gillespie received a call from another selector, Andrew “Digger” Hilditch, informing the fast bowler that he was not in Australia’s plans for the upcoming Ashes series. Gillespie had sensed the Chittagong Test would be his last. But true to form he had some fun with the administrator.

“I told him that I understand but I just wanted to clarify that it was based on my last Test form?” smiles Gillespie.

“But truly, and I’ve been quoted before, had I been a selector myself I’d probably have made the same call. Being a coach and selector myself I can understand the rationale behind it.”

Australian batsman Jason Gillespie (R) hits a ball during his remarkable double century. Source: AFP

The Chittagong Test has memories to last Gillespie a lifetime (or at least a lifetime of speaking engagements). And there is one morsel as precious as any — when Adam Gilchrist asked him to sing the Aussie team song.

“I’ve never spoken to Gilly about it but I reckon he sensed that it was my last game,” says Gillespie. “I sensed it myself. It was a lovely gesture from the great man. It was a nice way to sign off, really.”

Gillespie speaks to Fox Sports on a mini-bus full of cricketers from Papua New Guinea, the country of whom he’s head coach. As they hear him telling the stories — again — there is laughter. “They’re all pissing themselves, the boys,” laughs Gillespie. “They’ve heard it all before!

“But they have been interested in it. And like the rest of the cricket population, they’re in disbelief that I actually did that. It’s what makes it all the more funny. Eleven years on to still be asked about it.

“Mate — I still sometimes have to shake my head that it actually happened.”