Lord’s is not overly known as a batter’s paradise and contests between bat and ball do tend to be fairly even.
A stat that has been doing the rounds this week has been Graham Gooch’s 333 against India at the Home of Cricket in 1990 - the highest First Class score at the ground…until recently.
In early April and in the first round of the County Championship, batting records don’t usually get broken for positive reasons.
For those unfamiliar with weather in England, April is not Summer and therefore has the potential to be anything. In the not so distant past, April has brought snow to some parts of the country.
The weather did hold out over the course of the four day period in North London between 5th-8th this month despite some initial pessimism over the weather.
Glamorgan were Middlesex’s first guests to Lord’s this summer and inserted the opposition with very few guessing what was to come.
Gooch’s 333 stood as a ground record for nearly 34 years but this month - Glamorgan’s captain, Sam Northeast snatched the record from him as he declared with his personal tally standing at 335 not out after one and a half day’s at the crease.
Northeast is not new to the scene or new to the record books. Those who follow the County Championship will be familiar with the fact that Northeast is the most recent scorer of a First Class 400 in a match against Leicestershire in 2022 - the first man to do so since Brian Lara’s quadruple tonne against England in 2004.
Northeast has had a nomadic career which has taken him from Kent to Hampshire and finally to Glamorgan via loan stints at both Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.
Talent has never been in any doubt with Northeast and his club-hopping has been attributed to his hunt for the best opportunities he can find although this has certainly left him with some enemies along the way - notably at Kent where his legacy is somewhat mixed with fans of the county having been known to boo him.
Sam Northeast is now 34, around 9 months older than Gooch’s record but the Glamorgan man finds himself in a very different stage of his career than Gooch found himself.
Since the retirement of James Hildreth, Northeast has found himself as the most qualified player uncapped by England. The former Somerset man’s career ended with an England cap and Northeast's current trajectory looks set to follow.
Perhaps it’s an unfair characterisation, but the current England set up doesn’t seem as though it would want to (or need to) lean towards an ageing batter.
This was the argument raising it’s head at the time of the 410* that there was no need to bring in the batter with the England top order looking as secure as it had done in 10 years.
Both these enormous totals that Northeast has now scored have been on undoubtedly flat decks. Northeast’s 335* was one of 3 centuries in the game where both teams scored first innings totals in excess of 600.
The first round of Championship fixtures were characterised by big scores, an unusual occurrence for April which is considered to be a difficult month to bat in. There is a common denominator though, usage of the Kookaburra ball in advance of the next Ashes series in 2025/26. The lack of swing on offer with the Australian ball seems to have caused issues for English bowlers - part of the reason why it has been trialled in the first two round of this year’s County Championship.
For those who got a game in, there were significant scores round the country with Kashif Ali also impressing after scoring a maiden century for Worcestershire he went on to score another in his second innings.
Regardless of the type of ball and the batting friendly surface, breaking a ground record and becoming the earliest scorer of a triple hundred in County Championship cricket history is an unbelievable feat in terms of perseverance.
One swallow does not make a summer though and Northeast will know that his age will act against him in pursuit of a so-far illusive Test call up but he’s built the foundations towards an incredibly promising season.
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