It ended up being a good toss for Sam Northeast to lose: Middlesex invited his Glamorgan side to bat first, and he duly racked up the highest first-class score in the 210-year history of Lord’s cricket ground, 335 not out.
Northeast has long been considered one of the finest batsmen never to be given a chance by England, but he has made a habit of carving out historically large innings since moving to Glamorgan, his fifth county.
In 2022, his first season with the club, he smashed an unbeaten 410 not out, the highest ever score for Glamorgan, in a remarkable win at Leicestershire. Now, he has the county’s second highest score as well, but more notably the highest individual score at the home of cricket.
First-class cricket was first played at Lord’s in 1814 and there have been six triple-centuries in more than 2,800 matches at the ground. Northeast’s was the biggest score of the lot, overtaking the famous 333 Graham Gooch made for England against India in 1990.
Northeast had not made a century at Lord’s since scoring 115 for Harrow against Eton as a schoolboy in 2007 and, on the first evening, when he was unbeaten on 186, described the achievement as “a bucket list” item. There was plenty more to come.
Shortly after 2.30pm on day two, Northeast raised his bat for the seventh time in his innings in acknowledgement of the milestone, and promptly declared at the end of that over. Glamorgan had made 620 for three, and he had been involved in various vast partnerships: 129 with Billy Root (67), 176 with Kiran Carlson (77), and finally an unbeaten 299 with Colin Ingram (132 not out). His innings, which lasted 416 balls and featured 36 fours and six sixes was not without chances, given he was dropped twice and survived a bad missed stumping by Jack Davies off Josh de Caires on 291.
None of Middlesex’s bowlers went at less than 3.5 runs per over across the 139 overs they were in the field. At least, in response, their top order applied themselves, reaching stumps on 138 for one. They have a mountain to climb to save the game, but the pitch is good for batting, there is a short boundary towards the Mound Stand and the Kookaburra ball – which is being used as part of a four-match trial this season – lacks the life of the Dukes.
Bizarrely, while the 34-year-old now has a triple century to go with his quadruple century, none of Northeast’s 30 first-class hundreds are doubles. He has 28 centuries between 100 and 199, but none between 200 and 299. As he approached Gooch’s record, he passed 13,000 first-class runs.
Starting the season with such a bang opens up an intriguing possibility, that Northeast could become the first batsman since Graeme Hick in 1988 (and just the 10th overall) to reach 1,000 runs by the end of May in an English season. Before June, Glamorgan have six more Championship matches after this one.
Hat-trick for Sam Cook
Northeast’s was not the only outstanding individual achievement of the day. At Trent Bridge, Essex’s metronomic seamer Sam Cook took a hat-trick to keep his side in their season opener against Nottinghamshire. Cook picked up the wickets of Lyndon James, Brett Hutton and Dillon Pennington to keep Notts – for whom Joe Clarke made 104 and debutant Jack Haynes 77 – to 293, a lead of just 40.
At Edgbaston, Warwickshire and Worcestershire are playing out a tight contest. Worcestershire made 360 in their first innings, before Ed Barnard’s 89 provided the backbone of Warwickshire’s response, which had reached 290 for five late on the second day.
Leicestershire’s Ben Mike had a fine day on his return to face his former club Yorkshire at Headingley. First, he scored 90 in the Foxes’ 354, picking up the late wickets of Finlay Bean and Shan Masood.
At Hove, Northamptonshire reached an early stumps on day two 292 for seven against Sussex, for whom Ollie Robinson took his first wicket of the season.
Elsewhere, the early-season weather continued to cause trouble. The first two days have been washed out in Durham v Hampshire and Derbyshire v Gloucestershire.
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