Bangladesh vs Australia
2006-04-10
Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie, sent in as nightwatchman, refused to get out and scored 201* — the only double century by a nightwatchman in Test history.
India vs Pakistan
28 March - 1 April 2004
Sachin Tendulkar was controversially declared caught behind for 194 when replays suggested the ball may not have hit his bat, denying him a double century in Pakistan.
New Zealand vs England
2002-03-15
Nathan Astle scored the fastest double century in Test history in just 153 balls, turning an impossible chase into cricket's most entertaining assault on bowling.
England, West Indies
1984-07-02
Set 342 in 78 overs by David Gower's declaration, Gordon Greenidge made an unbeaten 214 at better than a run a ball to win the Lord's Test for West Indies with two overs to spare.
India, Zimbabwe
1983-06-18
India were 17 for 5 against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells in the 1983 World Cup when Kapil Dev walked in and made an unbeaten 175 — the highest individual ODI score at the time and the innings that turned the tournament.
Pakistan, India
1983-01-14
Javed Miandad made his career-best 280 not out at Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad, against India in January 1983 — the innings ended only when captain Imran Khan declared with Miandad 20 short of a triple century.
Pakistan vs England
3-8 June 1971
Zaheer Abbas made 274 against England at Edgbaston in June 1971 in only the second Test of his career — and his first in England — batting for nine hours and ten minutes, hitting 38 fours, and taking Pakistan to 608/7 declared. The innings, second only to Hanif Mohammad's 337 in Pakistani Test history at the time, announced Zaheer as the most prolific accumulator of his generation and earned him selection as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1972.
India vs England
1964-02-08
On 8 February 1964 at Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla, India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi made an unbeaten 203 against England in the fourth Test — the first double century by an Indian batsman in India and the highest individual score by an Indian Test captain at the time. Pataudi was 23 and had been playing with one effective eye for two and a half years.
Australia v India
1948-01-23
On 23-24 January 1948 at the Adelaide Oval, Don Bradman made 201 against India — his last Test double hundred and his final Test innings on Australian soil over fifty. Coming after his 100th first-class hundred at Sydney in November 1947, the innings cemented the post-war Bradman as a different kind of batsman: less feverishly fast-scoring, more patient, but no less ruthless against attacks short of front-line bowlers.
England v Australia
1938-06-26
Captaining England in his first Ashes home Test in charge, Wally Hammond made 240 at Lord's in June 1938 — at the time the highest score by an England captain against Australia and an innings widely rated alongside his 336* at Auckland and his 251 at Sydney as the finest of his career.
Australia v England
1937-01-01
On a wet New Year's Day pitch at the MCG in 1937, with Australia 0-2 down in the series, Don Bradman batted himself at No. 7, sent his tail in first to absorb the sticky, and then made 270 over almost eight hours. It is the highest score made on a sticky wicket in Test cricket, the innings that turned the 1936-37 Ashes, and the one Wisden in 2001 voted the greatest Test innings of the 20th century.
England v Australia
1934-08-18
Bill Ponsford's last Test innings was 266 at The Oval in August 1934, in a 451-run second-wicket stand with Don Bradman that won the Ashes for Australia and broke a world record that stood for 57 years. He walked off, raised his bat to a packed Oval, and retired from international cricket at 34.
England v Australia
1930-06-27
Two weeks before his Headingley triple, Bradman walked out at Lord's and produced what he would call, decades later, the finest innings of his life: 254 from 376 balls, 25 fours, almost every stroke struck in the meat of the bat. Australia made 729 for 6 declared, levelled the series, and put English bowling on notice that the 1930 tour would be unlike anything previous.
England v Australia
1930-08-16
With the series locked at 1-1 and the Ashes on the line, Bradman walked out at The Oval and made 232 across two days. Australia won by an innings and 39 runs, regained the urn, and finished a series in which Bradman had averaged 139.14. It was the innings during which Douglas Jardine, watching from the pavilion, began thinking seriously about leg theory.
New South Wales v Victoria
1929-01-11
Two months after his disappointing Test debut at Brisbane, Don Bradman made 340 not out for New South Wales against Victoria at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January 1929 — at the time the highest individual score made at the SCG, and a single innings that doubled his Test team's confidence in him.
Sussex v Northamptonshire
1929-05-15
On 15 May 1929 the 24-year-old K.S. Duleepsinhji — Ranji's nephew and the second member of the family to play county cricket for Sussex — made 333 against Northamptonshire at Hove, then a Sussex record and the highest score made on the south coast in county cricket.
Middlesex v Worcestershire
1925-07-21
On 21 July 1925 the 36-year-old Patsy Hendren made 277 for Middlesex against Worcestershire at New Road — at the time his career-best, in a 1925 season in which he scored 3,311 runs at 70.44 and was second in the English averages only to Jack Hobbs.
South v North (representative match)
1871-08-01
W.G. Grace's 268 for South against North at The Oval in August 1871 was the highest score of his career to that point and the centrepiece of an extraordinary season in which he became the first cricketer to pass 2,000 first-class runs in a summer. He averaged 78.25 — twice anyone else — and made ten of the 17 first-class centuries scored in England that year.
MCC vs Norfolk
1820-07-24
On 24-26 July 1820 at Lord's, the MCC banker-amateur William Ward scored 278 against Norfolk — the first double-hundred in important cricket and the highest individual score yet recorded anywhere in the world. Ward batted into the third day for an MCC total of 473, with Lord Frederick Beauclerk supporting him with 82 not out. The score stood as cricket's individual record for 56 years until W.G. Grace passed it in 1876.