Glamorgan’s closing County Championship match of the 2021 season against Surrey at The Oval saw a host of remarkable batting feats taking place and records being broken (writes Andrew Hignell):
• In all, 1,394 runs were scored for the loss of just ten wickets. This was the second highest average of runs per wicket in a Championship match and the fourth highest overall in first-class cricket, surpassed by:
189.14 (1324/7) Cambridge University v West Indians at Fenner’s, 1950.
155.25 (1242/8) Saurashta v Mumbai at Rajkot, 1996.
146.50 (1172/8) Warwickshire v Worcestershire at Edgbaston, 1978
• As the list below shows, it was the ninth time in the County Championship where both teams have scored over 600 runs, but never before have so few wickets fallen than in the game with Surrey at The Oval:
Leicestershire (609-8) v Sussex (686-8) at Aylestone Road, Leicester, 1900
Surrey (707) v Lancashire (863) at The Oval, 1990
Hampshire (641-4) v Nottinghamshire (612) at Trent Bridge, 2004
Somerset (688-8) v Surrey (717) at Guildford, 2006
Northamptonshire (660-5) v Essex (620) at Northampton, 2006
Middlesex (600-4) v Somerset (850-7) at Taunton, 2007
Essex (700-9) v Nottinghamshire (791) at Chelmsford, 2007
Sussex (601-6) v Warwickshire (612-6) at Edgbaston, 2015
• Glamorgan’s first innings score of 672-6 was also the fifth highest total in first-class cricket to be passed by the opponents during their first innings with the other instances being:
705 Karnataka v Delhi (707-8) at Delhi, 1982
707-9 dec Surrey v Lancashire (863) at The Oval, 1990
688-8 Somerset v Surrey (717) at Guildford, 2006
700-9 Essex v Nottinghamshire (791) at Chelmsford, 2007
• Both captains – Chris Cooke and Ollie Pope – made double hundreds in the game. This was the first-ever time that this feat had been achieved in a County Championship match, and only the fifth time overall in first-class cricket. The other instances have been:
Jeff Stollmeyer (208) and Clyde Walcott (209) – Barbados v Trinidad at Bridgetown, 1950/51
Carl Hooper (222) and Stuart Williams (252*) – Guyana v Leeward Islands at Albion, 2001/02
Mahela Jayawardene (240) and Younis Khan (313) – Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Karachi, 2008/09
DJ Hooda (293) and Yuvraj Singh (260) - Baroda and Punjab at Delhi, 2016/17
(with thanks to Andrew Samson and Ric Finlay for their kind assistance in compiling these listings above.)