India’s Rahul Dravid today became only the sixth cricketer in history to score 10,000 Test runs. The highest scorer in history is West Indies’ Brian Lara on 11,953.
Such records are there to be broken. The cricket team from the little town of Langport in my home area in Somerset achieved a record that might have been equalled, but can never be broken.
Gerald Gosling and Frank Huddy’s 1993 book Somerton, Ilchester and Langport has the scorecard of a match between Langport and Glastonbury on Whit Monday 1913.
It is evident from the scorecard that Glastonbury batted first, but that their strong opening batsman didn’t receive much support.
Glastonbury
| C A H Baily | b Cozens | 34 | ||
| A Lisk | c Knight | b Lang | 6 | |
| G J Ingram | run out | 1 | ||
| B Giblett | hit wkt | b Cozens | 8 | |
| H S Baily | not out | 9 | ||
| H Baily | b Cozens | 0 | ||
| W Davis | b Lang | 10 | ||
| A Lukins | run out | 10 | ||
| G Edwards | lbw | b Cozens | 0 | |
| J Pompey | run out | 4 | ||
| T Wickham | b Cozens | 1 | ||
| Extras | 3 | |||
| Total | 86 |
A five wicket haul for Langport bowler Cozens suggests he was handy enough. Perhaps tea was taken between the innings; no-one would have anticipated a world record equalling performance when Langport came into bat.
Langport
| C J Manley | lbw | b Lisk | 0 | |
| F J Pittard | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| J Lane | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| A Knight | c Lukins | b Lisk | 0 | |
| W E Brister | b Baily | 0 | ||
| H E Cozens | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| H G Stigings | lbw | b Lisk | 0 | |
| H B Hamm | b Baily | 0 | ||
| L Parker | b Baily | 0 | ||
| H Weaver | not out | 0 | ||
| F Barningham | b Lisk | 0 | ||
| Total | 0 |
All out for nothing, not even an extra. But there are two good things from such a scorecard: firstly, it was a bank holiday Monday and there would have been more time to sit and talk over the ale afterwards, and, secondly, decades later the match is still remembered.