The Record Nobody Talks About — But Should
We remember the biggest scores, but not the longest innings. This one lasted 970 minutes — and barely gets mentioned.
In cricket, there are records. There are milestones.
The numbers play a big role in the sport of cricket.
They help us remember the legendary innings, the unforgettable spells, and the moments that shaped the game. Numbers carry stories. They hold legacy.
We talk about Brian Lara’s 400. Everyone does.
But how many of us remember the opponent? Or the conditions?
We speak about Don Bradman’s average of 99.94 with awe. But few of us ever ask — what were the bowlers like in his time? What were the pitches like?
There is always uncertainty. Always gaps in our context. But despite that, the numbers carry. The legendary numbers survive.
And maybe that’s how they’re meant to work.
There’s also a talk that Bradman never hit a six in his entire career. And this is a career filled with double hundreds and triple hundreds. That only adds more weight to how special those numbers are.
We may never know the full story behind them, but we can compare them to what others of their time were doing. And by that comparison, Bradman still stands far above everyone else.
Just like Lara's 400.
No matter who the opponent was, no matter the pitch or the match situation, to score 400 in a Test match needs enormous, enormous, enormous effort.
You need to stay there.
You need to run every run.
You need to find boundaries.
You need to last.
It is hard, very hard, to do something like that.
That is exactly why I was not happy with the declaration when Wiaan Mulder was on 367. This is why that moment didn’t feel right to me. Because efforts like that do not come often. The game needed it. Test cricket needed it. You don’t throw that away. Especially not when there’s no pressure on the match. Especially not when you are dominating.
And then comes Sachin’s longevity. A hundred international centuries. It’s nothing short of a miracle. I genuinely don’t know if that will ever happen again — not with the way cricket is going, not with the way younger players approach the game today.
These are not just numbers.
They are history.
They are legacy.
They are a reminder of what greatness looks like when stretched over time.
But still, there is one record — one particular record — that nobody talks about.
And I think we should. We really should.
There are many match-saving innings that have flown under the radar. But this one stands apart. This one deserves more.
This record belongs to Hanif Mohammad.
A record of time.
Not runs. Not strike rate. Just pure time.
The record I am talking about is Hanif Mohammad’s 970-minute innings. It is the longest individual innings in Test cricket history.
Unfortunately, this happened in 1958 — so the number of balls faced was not officially tracked. But ESPNcricinfo has estimated that he must have faced more than 1100 balls, which is far more than any officially recorded innings list.
Let’s go back to that game.
This was a six-day Test match in Barbados.
West Indies had posted a massive 579 in the first innings.
Pakistan were bowled out for just 106.
They were asked to follow on.
It was Day 3. And everybody expected the match to end on Day 4 — maybe even that evening.
But then came Hanif Mohammad.
The pint-sized right-hander, known more for his technique than flair, walked out and simply refused to leave.
He batted through the third day.
And the fourth.
And the fifth.
And deep into Day 6.
He scored 337 runs batting consecutively for nine consecutive Test sessions. Pakistan set a target of 185 for West Indies, and there simply wasn’t enough time left for the hosts to chase it.
The match ended in a draw.
But it was not just a draw. It was a fightback. It was a statement. It was an effort that lives quietly in the corner of cricket history.
Of course, the West Indies attack in that era was not as fearsome as the one in the seventies or eighties.
But even then, they managed to bowl Pakistan out for 106 in the first innings. That is not a weak bowling effort. And when Hanif came in to bat in the second innings, no one expected what came next.
He built century partnerships for the first four wickets.
He batted and batted and batted. He scored 337, and here’s something remarkable — he ran 241 of those runs between the wickets. That is the most any batter has ever run in a Test innings to date. That record still stands. He hit 24 fours, and the rest came from sheer running.
He was the only Pakistan batter in that innings to score over a hundred. And yet, he kept the whole thing together.
He played what might be the greatest match-saving innings in cricket history. Not loud. Not flashy. But something deeper. It was an innings of sheer resistance.
And I feel, this record, the 970-minute knock, is not celebrated enough. It was like a one-man wall. It did not shout. But there was something more powerful about it. It had resilience.
Yes. Resilience is the word. That is what made this innings what it was. It was not about dominating the opposition. It was about not giving in. It was about staying there when every logic said you were done. It was about saving your team when the result seemed written already.
These are the kinds of efforts that make you fall in love with the game. Not just the scores. Not just the highlights. But the silent efforts. The long battles. The quiet storms.
Sometimes the records that go unnoticed are the ones that tell you what Test cricket really is.
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