In the 1899 first-class season Albert Trott scored 1,175 runs and took 239 wickets for Middlesex and the various invitational sides he played for. He became, and remains, the only cricketer to do a 1,000-run / 200-wicket double in a single first-class season — a feat he would repeat in 1900. The same summer he hit the only six ever to clear the Lord's pavilion. Wisden made him a Cricketer of the Year in 1899.
Trott's Australian Test career had ended after one further Test in 1895; he was inexplicably omitted from the 1896 Ashes party. Bitter, he sailed to England and signed with Middlesex on a residence qualification. His 1898 first season was a warm-up; 1899 was the full announcement.
By the close of May 1899 Trott had 350 runs and 60 wickets. The press began tracking the double from June onwards.
Trott had qualified for Middlesex by residence in 1898 after Australia's selectors had effectively cast him aside. The 1899 season was his second full Championship summer. He played 30 first-class matches, bowled 1,455 overs of round-arm medium pace, and batted across the order from three to nine.
The season aggregates: 1,175 first-class runs at 27.97; 239 wickets at 17.10. The 1,000+200 double had been managed before only by single players in shorter seasons (W.G. Grace in 1873 came close but did not reach 200 wickets in a Championship season; George Giffen had done a 1,000+100 in Australian first-class cricket in 1894-95). Trott's mark of 200 wickets and 1,000 runs in a single English first-class season was new.
He repeated the feat in 1900: 1,337 runs and 211 wickets. No one else has ever done it. The closest modern attempt was Wilfred Rhodes in 1909, who fell short on runs. The double would be functionally impossible in modern cricket; the 30+ first-class matches per English season disappeared after 1968.
May 1899: Trott opens season with 65 and 7/45 v Sussex.
June: Pavilion six off Noble at Lord's.
July: Reaches 100 wickets in single innings v Notts.
August: Reaches 1,000 first-class runs.
September: Reaches 200 first-class wickets.
Final aggregates: 1,175 runs at 27.97 and 239 wickets at 17.10.
Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1899.
Repeats double in 1900: only player ever to do so twice.
May 1899
Season opens at Hove; Trott 65 and 7/45.
Jul 1899
Pavilion six at Lord's.
Aug 1899
Reaches 1,000 first-class runs.
Sep 1899
Reaches 200 first-class wickets — first man ever in a season.
“He stood almost alone among the bowlers of the year, his work for Middlesex being phenomenal.”
Trott would manage one more big season in 1901 (945 runs and 175 wickets). His form declined from 1903; by 1910 he was retired. He died in 1914 in Willesden lodgings, by his own hand, aged 41.
The only 1,000-run / 200-wicket first-class double in cricket history, repeated in two consecutive seasons by the player Australia threw away.
The 1,000 + 200 double remains the most remote individual season aggregate in first-class cricket. The shrinking county season after 1968 closed the door; the 2000 reduction to 16 Championship games closed it again. Trott's 1899 and 1900 will not be matched.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.