Record Alert: Top 5 longest innings in first-class cricket

Rajeev Nayyar, captain of the Himachal Pradesh team, created history in the 1999-00 Ranji Trophy game by becoming the first player in first-class history to bat for over 1000 minutes. Rajeev scored 271 runs from 728 balls during his 1015-minute stay in the match against Jammu and Kashmir.

Nayyar, in this process, broke the longest FC innings record held by Hanif Mohammad. Mohammad played a record 970 minutes for his 337-run knock against West Indies in the 1958 Bridgetown Test.

Who all feature in this list?

Interestingly, as per Hanif’s claims he batted for 999 minutes which is almost half an hour more than the recorded time. In either case, the legendary Pakistan batsman occupies the 2nd place behind Nayyar. Gujarat opener Samit Gohel stands 3rd in the list who was about an hour away from breaking the all-time record. Gohel smashed an unbeaten 359 from 723 balls having spent 964 minutes at the crease in the 2016-17 season’s Ranji Trophy quarter-final match against Orissa.

Skipper Parthiv Patel didn’t bother to declare the innings as Gujarat took the first-innings lead which was enough for them to enter the semi-final. Gohel was set for bigger records but his team was bowled out for 641. Samit carried the bat but not before adding 188 runs for the last two wickets in 73 overs. Three of the top four places in the list of longest FC innings came in the Ranji Trophy itself.

Domination by Asian players

During the 2011-12 Ranji Trophy final, Vineet Saxena batted for more than seven sessions on the trot. Representing the Rajasthan team, Vineet made the Tamil Nadu bowlers grind it out on the Chepauk track with marathon batting. Saxena spent 907 minutes at the crease where he scored 257 runs from 665 deliveries. Rajasthan put on a huge total of 621 and went on to win the title by bundling out the hosts to 295 in the first essay.

The domination of Asian players in this list has been broken by Gary Kirsten who batted for more than 14 hours. During the 1999 Durban Test, Kirsten walked to bat in the 2nd innings after they were forced to follow-on. Gary negotiated England’s bowling and batted 642 deliveries for his 275. Kirsten got out at the score of 572/7 but had put the home team out of trouble by helping them avoid a defeat.

(Stats as on September 7, 2020)