Record Breakers

24th April 2024

Earlier this month, the Glamorgan captain Sam Northeast broke the record for the highest individual score by a batsman in a first-class match at Lord’s, when he made 335 not out in the fixture against Middlesex. The previous record had been held by Graham Gooch – 333 in 1990.

Northeast has a track record for huge scores. In a 2002 match – batting for Glamorgan against Leicestershire – he amassed 410 not out, the ninth highest first-class score in the history of the game. These are remarkable feats of skill, concentration, patience and stamina.

Now comes the “but”. I know that records are there to be broken… But…

Gooch’s innings was in a Test match between England and India, in which the opposition bowlers included Kapil Dev, Manoj Prabhakar, Ravi Shastri and Navenda Hirwani who, between them, would end their Test careers with a total of 747 wickets. He opened the batting on the first morning of the three-match series with India having won the toss and decided to field. There was a sizeable crowd and the pressure was on. Sam Northeast’s innings was in a County Championship second division fixture in which the two sides’ first innings produced a total of 1275 runs for the loss of 13 wickets. He declared his side’s innings closed at the end of the over in which he had broken the record.

The question of what I would have done under the circumstances is largely irrelevant, of course, given that my only time on a first-class cricket field was for a few minutes as a substitute fielder in a Cambridge University versus Warwickshire match at Fenner’s nearly 50 years ago. (For completeness: I threw the ball in over the top of the stumps after Dennis Amiss had hit it past me in the covers for two runs on his way to making 123). However, had I been in Northeast’s position, I do wonder if I might have declared on equalling Gooch’s record, rather than surpassing it. Why not be bracketed with an England captain who played in 118 Test matches and scored 8,900 runs in the process?

There is a precedent for this. In a Test match against Pakistan in Peshawar in 1998, the Australian captain Mark Taylor declared his side’s innings closed when he had reached an unbeaten 334. At the time, this happened to be the (joint) Australian record for an individual Test match innings, the existing record-holder being a certain Don Bradman, who had registered the feat against England at Headingley in 1930. The slight complication here is that this was Taylor’s score at the end of a day’s play and he had attempted to add to his total when facing the final two deliveries. He declared the innings closed before play began the next morning. (The milestone was overhauled a few years later when Matthew Hayden amassed 380 against the might of the Zimbabwean bowling attack).

A variant of this theme is given in the final innings that the Australian Darren Lehmann played for Yorkshire, against Durham at Headingley in 2006. In making 339 he did beat Bradman’s record Headingley score, but fell short of another record of which, certainly, most Yorkshire players (including Lehmann) and supporters would have been aware: George Herbert Hirst’s 341, which dated from a match against Leicestershire in 1905. In a subsequent interview, Lehmann – undoubtedly the most successful of Yorkshire’s overseas players – stated that he had been attempting to break Hirst’s record and had been bowled trying to hit a six. However, he also stated that, on reflection, “I’m actually quite glad that I haven’t got the record because I think that a Yorkshireman should have it.”

For most sporting records, the option for the potential record-breaker to ease up in order to merely equal the target rather than beat it simply does not apply: the sprinter approaching the finish line, the goalkeeper clocking up consecutive clean sheets, the tennis player chasing Grand Slam titles… However, for the batsman in cricket, there is this rare opportunity, although I recognise that there can also be caveats. If I had been Sam Northeast on 333 with my side needing one run to win off the final ball of the match, I suspect my attitude would have been different.

There is no right or wrong to this, of course. The current generation of sportsmen and women will have different perspectives on the role – and relevance – of history in their chosen sport. Moreover, in Northeast’s case, by the time that he had reached Gooch’s landmark he must surely have been experiencing a dizzying combination of euphoria and exhaustion. And, as we see with Darren Lehmann, one’s thought processes at the moment of potential history might evolve into something different with the passage of time.

Footnote. Graham Gooch also scored 123 in the second innings of the 1990 Lord’s Test match. With his match aggregate of 456, he thus continues to hold the records for the most runs scored in a Test match and in a first-class match at Lord’s.