343 not out! Village cricketer smashes his way to a record
A VILLAGE 2nd XI cricketer has batted his way into the record books by hitting 343 runs not out in a 40-over match.
Richard Symmonds, a vending machine supervisor, hit 30 sixes – including six consecutively in one over – and 29 fours in an amateur league match in Yorkshire.
His innings, the highest by a batsman since the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League was founded in 1894, was hailed as a ‘prodigious feat’ by experts at cricket’s reference ‘bible’ Wisden.
Yesterday a modest Mr Symmonds, 34, who opened the batting for Burnt Yates 2nd XI against Darley 2nd XI on Saturday, said: ‘It was just another game really.
‘The ball came perfectly off the bat every time. My team mates were a bit gobsmacked. They’ve all said there’ll never be another game like it again in their lifetime. They’re very proud of me. But it’s not about me getting that score. It’s about getting the other team out afterwards.’
His team batted first and made 457 for five. Darley were then all out for 166. Mr Symmonds, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, took three wickets as a bowler and one catch as a fielder.
Sir Thomas Ingilby, president of the Nidderdale and District league, whose family has lived at Ripley Castle in North Yorkshire for more than 700 years, was at the match.
Sir Thomas, 62, said: ‘I wouldn’t say the bowling was the best. I’d have fancied myself to get into double figures! But he struck the ball extremely cleanly. The fielders were wasted on the pitch. They should have been further out in the surrounding fields. It would have saved them a lot of climbing over fences to go and get the ball.’
The previous highest score in any 40-over amateur match is thought to be the 311 made by Andrew Brenton for Cornish side Luckett in 2013.
Wisden’s co-editor Hugh Chevallier noted that there are no reliable records for minor cricket so there may have been higher scores, but Mr Symmonds’ innings was ‘a prodigious feat and there will be precious few that can match it’.
Mr Symmonds celebrated by taking his wife Judi, 36, a nursery nurse and teaching assistant, for a fish and chip supper at the seaside in Whitby – and then played for the Burnt Yates first XI the next day, when he scored 45.