Mark Burgess's Low Career High First-Class Score

[tony p]

I was flicking through some of my old New Zealand Cricket Almanac's, as you do, and i noticed that Mark Burgess had a very low career high score.

I thought for a player who played 50 Test Matches, Captained his Country, and had a very long career, 1963-81, his career best was Only 146 for Auckland v Central Districts in 1971/72.
As he also made over 10,000 first-class runs, 10,281 to be precise i thought that was pretty rare and unusual. Most players who have long careers usually have a day out somewhere, making a 180+, or a double ton.

So I Thought i would have a look and see if there are many other players with 10,000+ First-class Runs without making a score of 150.

David Steele, Northants & England, 22,346 runs, 30 cent. H.S. 140no, ( Quite staggering really, mostly batted at number 4)
Peter Marner, Lanc & Leic, 17513 runs, 18 cent, H.S. 142no
George Dews, Worc, 16803 runs, 20 cent, H.S. 145.
Mike Smedley, Notts, 16482 runs, 28 cent, H.S. 149
Harry Pilling, Lanc, 15279 runs, 25 cent, H.S. 149no
Billy Neale, Glos, 14751 runs, 14 cent, H.S. 145
Jim Watts, Northants, 14449 runs, 10 cent, H.S. 145
Norman Featherstone, Middx & Glam, 13922 runs, 12 cent, H.S. 147
Gerry Lester, Leic, 12857 runs, 9 cent, H.S. 143
Eddie Dawson, Leic, 12598 runs, 14 cent, H.S. 146
Peter Graves, Sussex, 12076 runs, 14 cent, H.S. 145no
Tim Boon, Leic, 11821 runs, 14 cent, H.S. 144
Ian Hall, Derby, 11666 runs, 9 cent, H.S. 136no
Mike Edwards, Surrey, 11378 runs, 12 cent, H.S. 137
Ted Dillon, Kent, 11006 runs, 15 cent, H.S. 143
Maurice Hill, Notts,Derby,Som, 10722 runs, 7 cent, H.S.137.

All these players had long careers and batted in the top 6 but never got a score of 150+.
I'm sure there are many more, but that's what i have found.

One or Two interesting players not mentioned.

Arthur Milton of Glos in a career of 26 years scored 32,150 runs & 56 cent, only had a top score of 170, only passed 150 five times.
James Langridge of Sussex in a career of 29 years scored 31,716 runs & 42 cent, only had a top score of 167, only passing 150 five times.

There maybe other players domestically around the world who didn't score 10,000 runs but had long careers and didn't make a score of 150, i haven't looked.

However, i thought Burgess's case was quite unusual, and does anyone know why he didn't score higher. Was he not worried about records or was the batting around him so weak he didn't get a chance to play a really big innings?

Just noticed Jeff Crowe scored over 10,000 runs with a top score of 159, so he just misses this.

Still, if anybody has anything to add, please add away.

 

[Starfighter]

A lot of these players are the low-average but long career types who are very common in County Cricket. Steele for example scored only 30 centuries and averaged 32.5 in 500 matches. But it is still staggering that he never passed 140. Langridge was an allrounder so perhaps less surprising.

I've always noted Richie Richardson as being one of these types. FC average of 40.7, so better than most on this list (though worse than his test record) and his FC highest was 194.

 

[quincywagstaff]

Closest post-WSC Oz example I could find was 80s/90s WA batsman Wayne Andrews who played 91 FC matches for over 4500 runs and a HS of 139.

Former Windies Test bat Philo Wallace never reached 150 for over 100 FC matches and well over 6,000 runs.

Ricardo Powell's highest FC was 115!

 

[mr_mister]

It only extends to test but Mark Waugh another related case.

20 test centuries for a highest of only 153* always sat strange with me. I have no idea how many of his 81 FC centuries were higher than this but I wouldn't it be surprised if it wasn't that much? His highest FC score of 229* was made in a very famous unbroken partnership with his brother of course but I don't know if he hit 200 many more times.

But yes I think with Junior he's gone on record saying he lost concentration after reaching 100. Said this to Craddock or something. Seems to fit with his personality

 

[trundler]

This is the quality content I come here for

 

[Magrat Garlick]

3-day cricket would probably play its part in this

 

[Bijed]

I admit I don't know many of the names in the OP, but were they generally slower-scoring players? I guess if you take longer to make your runs you've got more chance of just getting out before you can make a massive score and you're more likely to get stranded before you can really push on, especially if you bat relatively down the order.

Obviously slower-paced batsmen can still make massive scores, but it might be a contributing factor

 

[fredfertang]

3-day cricket would probably play its part in this

Indeed - in Steele's case it's probably also relevant that most of his career had some tinkering with the laws to restrict the first innings in Championship matches - at one point some matches had a limit of 65 overs - that didn't last long (thankfully) but there was another period when it was limited to 100 overs and even when that wasn't in there was (and still is of course) a limit to the number of overs in which bonus points are available

 

[AndrewB]

Indeed - in Steele's case it's probably also relevant that most of his career had some tinkering with the laws to restrict the first innings in Championship matches - at one point some matches had a limit of 65 overs - that didn't last long (thankfully) but there was another period when it was limited to 100 overs and even when that wasn't in there was (and still is of course) a limit to the number of overs in which bonus points are available

1966 had some matches limited to 65 overs for the first innings; 1974-1980 had the 100 over limit (to be precise, 100 overs for the first innings, 200 overs in total for the first two innings so if you got the other side out quickly you could bat for longer).

But as the list here shows, there just weren't many big innings in county cricket back in the 60s (bear in mind that Edrich's 310 and Barrington's 163 were both in a Test match). Players as renowned as Barrington, Cowdrey, Dexter and May each scored 1 double century in their entire championship careers.

 

[fredfertang]

David Green's summer was a strange one - still he got a book out of it half a century later