Glamorgan arrived at Lord’s for their opening Championship match of the 2024 seasonhaving had just two outdoor nets plus a couple of days of play in a friendly against Cardiff UCCE. The fears of even the most loyal and diehard Glamorgan supporter who had travelled to St. John’s Wood were roused as Middlesex, having won the toss, opted to bowl first under a heavy cloud cover and after morning rain. But in a truly remarkable and wonderful display of batting, Sam Northeast wrote his name into the annals of the game at the historic ground by eclipsing Graham Gooch’s 333 set in the England-India Test of 1990, as the highest-ever individual score at Lord’s in first-class cricket. His monumental 335* from 412 balls in eight and three-quarter hours was also the second highest individual score for Glamorgan and their best-ever against Middlesex.
Such was his supremacy that he might have even reached 400 again had he not unselfishly put the interests of the team ahead of any personal goals as he declared an hour after lunch on the second day after a masterclass of crisp and cultured strokeplay, plus an unbroken fourth wicket stand of 299 with Colin Ingram whose hundred – the 999th in Glamorgan’s history – was completely overshadowed as the visitors reached a towering total of 620-3. Northeast survived difficult catches in the gully when on 11 plus another on 239 at backward point, before a more straight-forward stumping chance was missed when he was on 291.
Having had a pair of left-handed opening batters, the new ball was also shared by two southpaws for the first time in a Championship match for Glamorgan since 1978 with Jamie McIlroy opening the bowling with Mir Hamza, the new signing from Pakistan. Craig Miles, whose brother had played for the county’s 2nd XI and Cardiff MCCU in 2010 and 2011, also featured in the attack following a short-term loan agreement with Warwickshire. But like Middlesex’s experienced bowlers, none of the visiting bowlers extracted any assistance from the anodyne surface which, with alternating strips of light and darker grass, resembled a zebra crossing.
The bowlers were also using Kookaburra balls and there was significantly less lateral movement compared with the Dukes which have been the standard in recent times in the county games. Mark Stoneman looked like being another early centurion until he miscued a pull into the hands of mid-wicket. Jack Davies atoned for his missed stumping by making an attractive fifty, as did Max Holden until being snared by a clever fielding change as Northeast moved Ingram to leg-slip where, next over, he completed a catch.
But Ryan Higgins was not going to miss out on the chance of a sizeable innings as the all-rounder compiled a career-best double hundred and, with the help of some lusty blows on the final afternoon from Tom Helm actually took Middlesex into a slender lead. There was an hour remaining when Glamorgan began their second innings with Northeast, under the Lord’s floodlights, displaying some further fluent strokes until he shook hands with Toby Roland-Jones, his opposite number, as a remarkable and run-laden match – the 100th between the two teams in the County Championship – ended in a draw but with the game going into the annals as a result of the remarkable and record-breaking efforts of Sam Northeast.
