0500 Plus? Perhaps This Year

Firstly dear read­er an apo­logy for our lack of recent com­mu­nic­a­tion – we both appre­ci­ate it that people take the time to pour through our mus­ings and hope you con­tin­ue to do so.
Now down to business.
Back in August last year Eng­land did the unthink­able and broke the record for the highest ever one day inter­na­tion­al score, post­ing 444–3 – a run high­er than the pre­vi­ous total that had stood for a little over a decade.
It was a massive score – one that would have been seen as simply unachiev­able in years gone by. But the game, like England’s bat­ting order, has come on in spades in recent times with T20 crick­et lay­ing much of the found­a­tion for a new style of play.
And it got me pon­der­ing the like­li­hood of if, or more likely, when the first score of 500 will be pos­ted. I for one see it hap­pen­ing soon – per­haps this year.
In the mod­ern crick­et world ODI and T20 crick­et is where the money is and, there­fore, where the top tal­ent goes. Pre­vi­ous art­icles on this site have lamen­ted the ever fall­ing attend­ances at test crick­et matches (for the most part Eng­land and Aus­tralia are immune) – people want to see crash, bang wal­lop crick­et both at a domest­ic and inter­na­tion­al level.
Com­pet­i­tions of which the Indi­an Premi­er League and Aus­sie Big Bash are but two examples, encour­age bats­men in par­tic­u­lar to go for the ever more extra­vag­ant shots to tally up as many runs as pos­sible. Runs are enter­tain­ing and enter­tain­ment draws the crowds. The crowds bring in the money.
Of course such matches are 20 over based not 50 but the skills and tal­ent are increas­ingly being trans­lated into the slightly longer format.
The mod­ern crick­eter plays an ever increas­ing amount of short­er form crick­et – be that at the domest­ic or inter­na­tion­al level and that exper­i­ence is trans­lat­ing into improved performances.
There are plenty of play­ers cap­able of tak­ing their side to the magic 500 – when Eng­land smashed their record score Alex Hales was the main run scorer. I listened in and was frus­trated when he got out – he was going so well – there was time left in the innings and he had, it seemed, ammuni­tion left in the tank. Joe Root was at the oth­er end play­ing second fiddle, tick­ing away at around a run a ball as he does so well. The expect­a­tion was, giv­en he was well set, he would up the tempo once Hayles had depar­ted. Sadly Root was out soon after so we will nev­er know. My point being that there was a brief peri­od in which the innings ambled along (rel­at­ively speak­ing) before Jos But­tler and Eoin Mor­gan gave it some late addi­tion­al impetus.
Anoth­er 56 runs may appear to be a big ask – but look at it anoth­er way – that’s a shade over 9 addi­tion­al sixes – an over and a half – noth­ing to a num­ber of play­ers whose names roll off the tongue.
Good luck if you are bowler!