Tim Paine’s decision to declare on David Warner on 335 not out in the second Test against Pakistan gave rise to debate as to whether Warner should have been given a crack at Brian Lara’s record 400.
Much of the discussion was around team versus individual glory. There was a bit of commentary about the good of the team being the Australian way. Of course, we now know that Australia won the match – helping the good of the team argument – but with four sessions remaining, which aids the argument that chasing 401 wouldn’t have cost a win.
My take on it is a bit different. The world record score, while an individual achievement, does reflect on the whole country. And in the long run, it is the score itself that we remember and are inspired by, rather than the result in the match.
Therefore, allowing Warner to get to 401 would have been a positive for the whole of Australian cricket, even if the match had ended in a draw and even if Warner himself isn’t the most liked player.
(AAP Image/David Mariuz)
To help demonstrate that point, I went back and looked at the history of the highest score world record and the circumstances in which they were set.
Charles Bannerman, 165 not out — Australia versus England, MCG, March 1877 — Australia won by 45 runs
The first ever innings in Test cricket and still one of the most famous. Bannerman retired on 165 not out having suffered a broken finger late in the Australian first innings. No one else scored over 63 in the match and Australian went on to the now legendary 45-run win with Tom Kendall taking 7/55 to stymie the English chase.
Bannerman’s masterpiece is still the highest on debut by an Australian and 67.3% is still the world record for highest percentage of total runs by one batsman in a completed Test innings.
Billy Murdoch, 211 — Australia versus England, The Oval, August 1884 — match drawn
Murdoch was the first great Australian batsman and this was the first double century in Tests. Australia’s 551 in that innings was the highest team score in Tests as well – the previous record was 420 – with Percy McDonnell and Tup Scott also scoring tons.
What is not well known is that Murdoch himself had a Warner moment four years earlier at the same ground when he was stranded on 153 not out, just 12 runs short of Bannerman, as Australia tried to set England a defendable target.
While the 1884 match was drawn, Australia were the dominant team and it was only an incredible 117 by Walter Read, batting at number ten, which saved England.
RE ‘Tip’ Foster, 287 — England versus Australia, SCG, December 1903 — England won by five wickets
Foster was one of seven brothers who played for Worcestershire. He died at the age of 36 but in his short life managed to captain England at both cricket and football. His 287 was famously on debut and remains the record score for someone in their first Test. It was also the highest score at the SCG until Michael Clarke’s 329 not out against India in 2014, his own self-inflicted Warner moment.
The match itself was one of the greats – England had a huge first innings lead, Victor Trumper then performed his own masterclass with 185 not out in less than four hours. Trumper’s innings was the fifth highest score in Tests at the time and England chased down 194 with five wickets left. Foster’s 19 in the second innings also meant that he was the first player to score 300 runs in a Test.
It was a great match and a great win for England, but 287 is all anyone remembers.
Andy Sandham, 325 — England versus West Indies, Sabina Park, April 1930 — match drawn
Andy who? you might ask, and it’s not an unfair question.
Sandham was a highly accomplished county cricketer, being Jack Hobbs’ long-term opening partner at Surrey and scoring over 100 first-class centuries. Yet he was never really Test class, having passed 50 once in ten Tests prior to that tour of the West Indies when he was nearly 40.
The tour was a strange one, given Test status even though England were playing a series against New Zealand at the same time. The England side included a 52-year-old Wilfred Rhodes and a 50-year-old George Gunn, playing his first Test series in 18 years. Only one England player in that match played the next Test against Australia just two months later.
The match was a seven-day bat-athon with England scoring a record 849 and then, bizarrely, batting again even with a nearly 600-run first-innings lead. Sandham scored 50 in the second innings as England set the West Indies 836 to win.
Sandham’s 375 for the match remained a world record until it was beaten by Greg Chappell in Wellington in 1974. The 325 score remains the highest in a player’s last Test, giving it a nice symmetry to Foster’s 287 on debut, and Sandham is still the oldest person to have scored a Test triple century.
England would probably have won the match and series, if not for batting too long. However, it will forever be known as Sandham’s match.
Don Bradman, 334 — Australia versus England, Headingley, July 1930 — match drawn
Sandham’s record only lasted two months. Bradman played many large innings but this one was genuinely extraordinary.
(Photo by PA Images via Getty Images)
He came in during the second over of the innings, then famously scored 309 on the first day – still the record for most runs in a day. He scored 100 before lunch on Day 1, a feat only done six times in Tests. By the time the famous front page confirmed ‘He’s Out’, he had scored 66 per cent of the runs while he was at the crease.
It was no flat track, either. In a match packed with batting legends – Hobbs, Sutcliffe, McCabe – only the mighty Wally Hammond also made it past the 70s, a torturous 113 off 361 balls. Eventually England held on, having been made to follow on, but there was only one story of the match.
So for the first five times the highest score record was set, in four of them, the match is remembered for the record innings and little else. And even in the exception – the first Test – the match wouldn’t have been anywhere near as memorable if not for Bannerman’s innings.
In Part 2, we look forward to Lara’s mammoth score.
JamesH
Roar Guru
While I agree with you, I can imagine the way Paine would have been hammered for that draw if we'd just missed out. As it is, he'll probably cop it for Headingley if we find ourselves in that scenario.
Adam Bagnall
Roar Guru
If you think that's what Steve Waugh was about you know very little about him. Hayden may have the record but take it with a grain of salt it was Zimbabwe.
Josh H
Roar Rookie
(perhaps other than the threat of rain) Yeah you might be forgetting a really critical component here called the Test Championship
Josh H
Roar Rookie
No comparison. Should Australia and another country be neck and neck in the Test championship come semi-finals time, every single point could be absolutely crucial. Rolling the dice against that just to pursue one personal record is so incredibly foolish; it could sacrifice literally the entire competition.
TheGeneral
Roar Rookie
You could be right re test touring teams in those days. But that team to the West Indies on that tour was 2rd class and the WI 4th class. Straight after that tour England played Australia in the ashes in the UK. Only one player from that WI tour appeared in the England team, and two from the NZ tour. There was no Hammond, Sutcliffe, Hobbs, Allen, Larwood, Tate etc on those tours. It points to your comment that the major players would not go on those tours. Sandham had failed badly in Test cricket up to that WI tour. He played 15 innings in test matches from 1921-25, averaging 19.13 with one fifty. The WI tour was in 1930 five years after his previous tests. And yes he did score his 325 and 151, but the opposition was average. Having said that he was a very, very good cricketer, something I had not realised. He had 1000 innings in F/C cricket @ an average of 45, with 107 centuries and 165 fifties. As an opening batsman he had to compete against Hobbs, Sutcliffe and Hammond in that top order.
Nick
Guest
No it wouldn't. I don't watch cricket because someone made a record. My son didn't go aww Warner didn't make a record I'm not watching the NZ tests now. But he did say we have won two in a row, now let's see us beat NZ. He said US as in more than one.
Pierro
Roar Rookie
Hadnt even thought of the protective gear actually but the physical conditioning and lack of sports science, diet etc . Not to mention they would have boozed back then a bit more (maybe not like the 70s and 80s lot) but without medical advances (they were still butchering people with surgery until post war it would have been hard with illnesses. The other thing I think of is these guys often had regular jobs can you imagine performing at elite level then pulling a day gig or part time gig. Moreover, the war. just the radical effects on that generation either side of their cricket. To think many of them fought in it and many came back to cricket after 8 years out notably many of the invincibles. Comparisons seem condescending to that generation really. It makes bradman and the players in that error and just after right up to the comptons just look like incredible athletes and mentally so strong. Im not disrespecting recent efforts but really you'd have to wonder what some of the guys in the 30s to 50s could achieve today , let alone some of them who played before them. Flat comparisons to todays lot are not really fair. I too miss the county warm ups. to think it seemed that it was more relevant right up to the point where t20 really started to wipe schedules out and cash bait cricketers in to that format. I too miss the county build up with aussies. Its amazing how that can still work though. Labuschagne being the example this year it just has lost its importance for cricketers, financially it just does not take Priority I suspect sadly for test cricket.
Pierro
Roar Rookie
hopefully they give that lad a bit more time , he looks very promising. glad WACA got on the front foot there
Jeff
Roar Rookie
I would have liked to see one of the great milestones set in a game, but that said, I don't think there was a right or wrong decision in this discussion.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Given it's in England, it surely has to be timeless. Imaging a two year WTC schedule that culminates in being decided by a single match that is a draw.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
I must say, wins in these two Test series are WTC points-gold. 48 points total from our Two Test wins in the Ashes. 120 points for our two Test wins v Pakistan!
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Interesting re dual sports representation: I was just reading an ABC article re Cameron Green. Apparently the WACA did their job well and identified him at an early age (like 16 or 17) and offered him a contract. Green didn't have a preference for focusing on either cricket or Aussie Rules, but because the WACA put a contract in front of him, it was cricket he chose. Thank goodness.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Not to mention the (lack of) protective gear. Pads made of wooden sticks and material covering. Of course bowlers didn't have the physical training to hone their bodies for fast bowling, though many more than now came from an era of physical hard work from an early age, so had naturally built-up strength, though not necessarily in all the right places. It's interesting that so many of the early tours between England and Australia involved so few Tests; mostly for the touring teams it was about playing as a national representative side against many of the first class sides in the country. I still lament the loss of that aspect of the game. I loved following, from home, the progress of the Australians in their six or seven County side matches even before the First Test got under way. It's no wonder home sides dominate/touring sides struggle nowadays; no time to acclimatise.
John Erichsen
Roar Guru
So? I can live with Lara still holding that record. It is a record that has been held by some of the very best in the game. Bradman, Hammond, Hutton, Sobers and Lara. Hayden, while very good, isn't in the same league as the others and Warner shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. Despite knowing Matthew Hayden personally and being a big fan, I always felt it somehow fitting that Lara took the record back.
TheGeneral
Roar Rookie
In the opinion of most on here, YES. You excepted.
JGK
Roar Guru
We could have had all those things plus a current player would have the world record.
John Erichsen
Roar Guru
We won the test by an innings plus and gave our bowlers an extra day off rest after a very full 2019 schedule. How could it be the wrong one?
JGK
Roar Guru
The issue is whether the planned schedule was the right one.
John Erichsen
Roar Guru
Warner knew the planned schedule for a declaration, so move on. Nothing to see here.
elvis
Roar Rookie
Are you seriously telling me, you missed the infographic that channel Nine put up during the Sydney test every year, "Highest Score at the SCG" about 5 times a day. For 30 years. R.E Foster you might know him as.