A History of Cricket at King Edward's School, BIrmingham

72 heavier in the 1920s than at any time since then until the 1980s, when batting records began to be broken by Nick Willetts, Neil Martin and others. This has continued, thanks to batsmen such as Anurag Singh and Mark Wagh in the 1990s and Jack Cornick in the first decade of the twenty-first century: there were 22 scores of over two hundred in the 1980s, 46 in the 1990s, 39 in the 2000s and a further 22 in the six seasons from 2010 to 2015. The story is the same if we analyse individual performances. There was plenty of good batting in the early 1970s: Andrew Burn, John Winspear, Richard Pope, John Claughton and Simon Partridge all scored over 1,200 runs during this period. Partridge broke the seasonal aggregate record in 1976, with 1,054 runs, and Claughton and Partridge surpassed the first-wicket partnership record with a stand of 223 against unknown opponents in 1975. However, in the 1980s, most of the major batting records were not simply broken, but obliterated. No one had previously scored more than three centuries, but Neil Martin made 11 centuries between 1984 and 1987, and Nick Willetts eight between 1981 (when he scored his first century, aged 14) and 1985. Paul Inglis, with four between 1986 and 1988, was not far behind. Whereas Partridge had exceeded John Barnfield’s record career aggregate of 1,880 by just seven runs, these totals were dwarfed by the achievements of Martin (a School career aggregate of 3,291) and Willetts (3,270). When the Gentlemen of Worcestershire declared at 267 for five in 1987, they can hardly have expected to lose by ten wickets, but Martin (148 not out) and Inglis (109 not out) established a new record partnership by making 270 without loss. Martin’s 1,104 runs in 1987 was a new record aggregate for a season. Martin and Willetts were the dominant batsmen of this period, but others also made plenty of runs in the eighties, notably Inglis 1,949 from 1986 to 1988, Michael Hughes 1,609 from 1981 to 1983, and Carl Meyer 1,601 from 1987 to 1991. The high scoring continued in the 1990s. Mark Wagh made ten centuries between 1993 and 1995, and ended with a career total of 2,884 runs. Anurag Singh comes just behind him with nine centuries and a career total of 2,812. Nick Linehan only made one century, but still notched up 2,217 runs between 1989 and 1993. Singh and Linehan put on 236 for the second wicket against King’s School Worcester in 1992, beating a 65-year old record set by WE Sandbach and FL Bland in 1927. Singh broke Martin’s 1987 record by scoring 1,138 runs in 1992 (and Wagh just missed it with 1,062 in 1995). Centuries were fewer as the successes continued into the new millennium, but Aninrudh Singh scored 2,086 runs between 1998 and 2002 and Daniel Shilvock 1,541 in the same period, and Simon Chase scored 1,508 runs between 2000 and 2004. However, Jack Cornick has been the dominant batsman of the twenty-first century, with five centuries, 27 scores of fifty or more (a record) and 2,715 runs between 2008 and 2011. Records continue to be broken. In 2017, Tarush Gupta and Josh Ray (who both made hundreds) put on 255 for the second wicket to beat the record of Singh and Linehan set 25 years earlier. What of the bowlers? It is clearly much more difficult to take large numbers of wickets in a season than it used to be – although it is noteworthy that the number of bowlers taking thirty wickets in a season has remained fairly constant since 1900. Against this yardstick, there are some individual achievements that stand out. Simon Rich took 49 wickets in 1975 and Duncan Shuttleworth 62 in 1976, both clearly important to the success