A Sussex Partnership of 309 Runs For The Seventh Wicket

Martin Chandler | 2:40am BST 20 October 2019

Published: 2019
Pages: 8
Author: Epps, Norman and Barnes, Phil
Publisher: Sussex Cricket Museum
Rating: 3 stars

This is number nine in what is described as an occasional series of papers issued by the Sussex Cricket Museum. It is the sort of thing that all counties should do, and yet only Sussex seem to. As a limited edition of 60 copies at £5 each I am sure it will sell out and, the production costs being next to nothing, bring a welcome boost to the museum’s finances. Playing the slightly longer game it will doubtless have the incidental benefit of increasing interest and awareness in the museum as well as leaving all purchasers with an attractive piece of memorabilia.

The clue of course is in the title although I must confess that, the days when the broadsheets would carry full reports on all county matches having long gone, this particular match from last summer passed me by. Ben Brown is the Sussex wicket-keeper and Chris Jordan, as we all know, a thrilling all-rounder who can be, but perhaps isn’t as often as he ought to be, one of the most exciting all round talents in England.

The front cover contains the title, fixture and venue details and a photograph of each batsman. There is then a scorecard followed by a brief look at the partnership itself and the two batsmen. The stand is not, as I suspected initially it might be, a Sussex record and the centre pages of the booklet are taken up with the reproduction of a scorecard and a brief description of what remains the highest ever seventh wicket partnership for the county, one of 344 runs between Ranji and William Newham more than a century ago.

The booklet concludes with a list of partnerships of 300 or more for the county in First Class cricket, of which there are as many as 20. There is then a photograph of the scoreboard and two batsmen who featured in the highest of all those partnerships (an opening one of 490 between Ted Bowley and John Langridge in 1933), which concludes the souvenir.

Brown and Jordan have signed their photographs on the front cover of each of the booklets, and I would suggest Sussex supporters purchase quickly before all the available copies are snapped up by those of us who support other counties but buy these for no reason other than that we like this sort of thing.