Those Indian school kids and their world record partnership

A couple of people have contacted us to question why we haven't included a post about the recent world record partnership of 720 between B Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaaz Tumbi (spellings from Cricinfo) for St Peter's High School in Hyderabad.

Well, we didn't want to repeat ourself. We could have focused on the fact that cricket is a fantastic sport where schoolboys can set world records. We could have focused on Vinod Kambli who, together with Sachin Tendulkar, held the previous record of 664. Vinod Kambli played 17 Tests, averaged 54.20, but bizarrely gained no further Test recognition. We could even have focused on just what percentage of the two boys' shots went for four. They made 720 in just forty overs and didn't hit a single six.

What we actually would have done, would have been to describe the achievement thus, like we always do:

Imagine you're playing cricket on your own. You're throwing a ball against a wall and then hitting it. Every time you hit the ball, you rather generously give yourself six runs, even when you blatantly mis-hit it. Even then, with everything going your way and no rules to slow you down, it's really, really hard to score that many runs.

That way of looking at run-scoring feats applies almost universally. The only exception is Matthew Hayden's former world Test record score of 380 against Zimbabwe: Anyone could have done that. It was essentially a worthless achievement. A non-achievement, even.