Those Bat Carries in Full
0
Glenn Turner 1969
Turner was playing in his fourth test when he achieved this. A test mainly remembered for its rubbish pitch and one of the great photos of all time (that’s Dayle Hadlee).
It also featured Turner negating Derek Underwood who took 7/32 off 31 sticky overs in the second innings. And that followed 4/38 off 29 overs in the first innings. Even Fleet Street climbed in the state of the sludge at Lords.
The fourth innings was a bitter, defeatist rear-guard effort. Hastings, Pollard and Taylor all made ducks, but Turner battled away.
43 off 226 was batting befitting of the times. Scoring at a SR of 19 proved that he had arrived on the international scene. At the time it was the 16th time this had happened in test cricket.
The next highest number of balls faced was Dayle Hadlee, batting at 10, with 43
Glenn Turner 1972
New Zealand had lost the toss, as they did the whole time on that tour. And the West Indies racked up over 500 in the first innings of the first test with Lawrence Rowe scoring 214 on debut. New Zealand was shattered and, inevitably, lost 3 wickets during a brief bat at the end of Day Two.
From then on in he had only one batsman in support. The late Ken Wadsworth scored 78 over two sessions but the next highest score was 16.
This was a five test series and Turner put out the marker that he was going to dominate it. The last wicket partnership contributed 22 and Turner scored all of them. 223* out of 386 was very impressive.
He became the fourth person to achieve the feat; the others being Bill Woodfull, Len Hutton and Bill Lawry
The West Indies ended up using nine bowlers.
Tom Latham 2018
46 years later Tom Latham did it again.
He became the first person to carry his bat in a score of over 500 and the highest score in achieving the feat, passing the record set by the soon-to-be-knighted Alistair Cook in doing so.
Unlike Turner. Latham’s achievements have always been a bit ignored, but this was an innings of gradual acceleration which could well end up being career defining.
Name a better paced bat carrying innings. And those cover drives….
Well worth the 46 year break.