batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

has scored 1,000 first-class runs before the end of May in an English cricket season on only eight occasions. In five of these occasions, the batsman reached 1,000 runs with innings played in April and May, but three scored 1,000 runs in the month of May alone. These were:

W.G. Grace William Gilbert Grace (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English amateur cricketer who was important in the development of the sport and is widely considered one of its greatest players. He played first-class cricket for a record-equal ...

in 1895,

Wally Hammond Walter Reginald Hammond (19 June 1903 – 1 July 1965) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Gloucestershire in a career that lasted from 1920 to 1951. Beginning as a professional, he later became an amateur and was appointed cap ...

in 1927, and most recently

Charlie Hallows Charles Hallows (4 April 1895 – 10 November 1972) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Lancashire and England. A tall left-handed opening batsman, Hallows provided the attacking flair in the successful Lancashire side in the 19 ...

in 1928.

Donald Bradman Sir Donald George Bradman, (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 has bee ...

is the only person to have scored 1,000 runs before the end of May twice, in 1930 and 1938. Uniquely, a second batsman also reached 1,000 runs before the end of May in 1938,

Bill Edrich William John Edrich (26 March 1916 – 24 April 1986) was a first-class cricketer who played for Middlesex County Cricket Club, Middlesex, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Norfolk County Cricket Club, Norfolk and England cricket team, England. Ed ...

, mainly thanks to a sporting declaration by Australia at 5.09pm on the third and final day of the match against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

on 28–30 May, when Edrich needed another 10 runs. The rarely-achieved feat has become even more scarce since the Second World War, with only

Glenn Turner Glenn Maitland Turner (born 26 May 1947) played cricket for New Zealand and was one of the country's best and most prolific batsmen. He is the current head of the New Zealand Cricket selection panel. Early life Glenn Turner was born in Dune ...

and

Graeme Hick Graeme Ashley Hick (born 23 May 1966) is a Zimbabwean-born former England cricketer who played 65 Test matches and 120 One Day Internationals for England. He was born in Rhodesia, and as a young man played international cricket for Zimbabwe. H ...

reaching 1,000 runs before the end of May since 1938. In part, this is due to the reduced schedule of first-class cricket since the introduction of domestic

one-day cricket Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket or white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty ...

competitions in the 1970s, and a corresponding reduction in the number of first-class matches played by English county teams and touring international teams. Hick, the last player to complete 1,000 first-class runs before the end of May, completed the bulk of the runs in three innings: 212 against Lancashire, 405 not out against Somerset, and 172 against the touring West Indies. He started this last innings, his last of the month, needing 153 to reach the target. The start of the English cricket season has crept earlier in April in recent years, and

Nick Compton Nicholas Richard Denis Compton (born 26 June 1983) is a South African-born English former Test and first-class cricketer who most recently played for Middlesex County Cricket Club. The grandson of Denis Compton, he represented England in 16 ...

came close to achieving 1,000 runs before the end of May 2012, needing 59 runs on 31 May against

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

. Rain intervened with Compton having only scored nine, but he scored a century after resuming his innings the following day to pass 1,000 runs on 1 June. Other near misses include

John Langridge John George Langridge MBE (10 February 1910 – 27 June 1999) was a cricketer who played for Sussex. His obituary in ''Wisden'' called him "one of the best English cricketers of the 20th century never to play a Test match". Born into a cricketi ...

who reached 1,000 runs on 2 June 1949, and

Brian Lara Brian Charles Lara, (born 2 May 1969) is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and holds several cricketing reco ...

, who reached 1,000 runs on 2 June 1994 from just seven innings. Coincidentally, exactly ten years later, Ben Compton, the cousin of Nick, also narrowly missed out on the milestone formerly achieved by their grandfather Denis' long-time England and

team-mate

. In 2022 Ben Compton made 878 first-class runs in the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

for

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in April and May before scoring 158 runs (in two innings combined) in the last match before the end of May, a red-ball two-innings match for a "First Class Counties XI" (or "County Select XI") against the touring

New Zealand cricket team The New Zealand national cricket team represents New Zealand in men's international cricket. Named the Black Caps, they played their first Test in 1930 against England in Christchurch, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. From 1930 ...

. However, unlike in Hick's case in 1988, the tour match was not given first-class status as the sides used more that eleven players at different stages, so this is not recognised as 1,000 first-class runs before the end of May.

1,000 runs before the end of May

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W. G. Grace William Gilbert Grace (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English amateur cricketer who was important in the development of the sport and is widely considered one of its greatest players. He played first-class cricket for a record-equal ...

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Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

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Tom Hayward Thomas Walter Hayward (29 March 1871 – 19 July 1939) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Surrey and England between the 1890s and the outbreak of World War I. He was primarily an opening batsman, noted especially for the qual ...

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Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

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Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

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New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

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1,000 runs before the end of May

References

Further reading