Runs and records warm statisticians

By Andrew Hignell

Temperatures may have plummeted in the UK but there has been plenty to warm the hearts of cricket statisticians in this country and occupy plenty of their time at home on snow-days as a result of some remarkable batting feats in the sub-continent.

Already the winter months here have seen runs in domestic matches in India flowing like the River Ganges with a stand of 539 for the third wicket in the Ranji Trophy match in November between Saurashtra and Gujarat in what was the ninth highest stand in all first-class cricket.

Early January has seen some remarkable batting feats in the Bangladesh Cricket League with the match between Central Zone and East Zone at Bogra seeing Marshall Ayub (289) and Mehrab Hossain junior (218) add 494 for the fifth wicket.

Their efforts produced the second highest stand ever recorded for that wicket in all first-class cricket, and surpassed only by the mammoth 520* added by Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja for Saurashtra against Orissa at Rajkot in 2008/09.

The prolific Pujara also featured in another unusual record in the first week of the new year as on January 6 both he and fellow Indian Taruwar Kohli each completed triple hundreds in domestic matches, with Pujara’s 352 coming against Karnataka at Rajkot and Kohli’s unbeaten 300 made against Jharkhand at Jamshedpur.

Apparently, this was the first time since July 28, 1937 that two triple hundreds were recorded on the same day in first-class cricket. On that day seventy-six years ago Lancashire’s Eddie Paynter made 322 against Sussex at Hove, while along the south coast Hampshire’s Dick Moore posted 316 against Warwickshire at Dean Park in Bournemouth.

*Andrew Hignell is Glamorgan's official scorer and statistician




Date: 20/01/2013 08:30:00 by Andrew Hignell
In: Today | Hampshire | Glamorgan |