Northamptonshire opener Prithvi Shaw smashed 244 off 153 balls as they piled up 415-8 and beat Somerset by 87 runs in the One-Day Cup at Wantage Road.
It was the second highest individual score in a county List A game, as Northants came within 10 runs of equalling their best 50-over total.
Surrey’s Ali Brown still holds the record one-day score in English cricket with his 268 against Glamorgan in 2002.
Elsewhere, Derbyshire and Lancashire earned their first group-stage wins.
Derbyshire beat Sussex by eight wickets and Lancashire – following two no-results because of rain – comfortably defeated 2022 winners Kent by 125 runs at Blackpool’s Stanley Park.
Prodigiously talented teen
The unquestioned performance of the day, though, came in Northampton where Shaw struck 11 sixes and 28 fours and put on 194 with Sam Whiteman (54).
India batter Shaw, who once scored 546 in a single innings as a 14-year-old and made a debut Test century when he was only 18, was signed by Northants to provide – as head coach John Sadler put it – a “bit of superstardom”.
Having made 34 and 26 in his first two innings for the club, the 23-year-old brought up his 50 off 44 balls against Somerset with a square cut for four off Danny Lamb.
The right-hander, who also shared a stand of 108 for the second wicket with Ricardo Vasconcelos (47), went to his century from 81 balls.
When he reached 162 he passed the previous 50-over best for Northamptonshire by former captain David Sales in 2006 and cruised past the county’s limited-overs record score of 172 not out by Wayne Larkins, made in a 40-over match in 1983.
Whiteman played on to Lamb with the score on 369 and Shaw eventually departed three balls from the end of the innings, caught at deep mid-wicket off the same bowler, as five more wickets went down for eight runs.
It was Shaw’s second double century in 50-over cricket, having made 227 not out for Mumbai in February 2021.
“The sun was out, it was kind of Indian weather,” he told BBC Radio Northampton.
“When I got to 150, I was timing the ball really well and I thought ‘this could be the day to go bigger (than 227)’. I tried to grab it with both hands.”
- Highest individual scores in List A games
- 277 Narayan Jagadeesan, Tamil Nadu v Arunachal, 2022
- 268 Alistair Brown, Surrey v Glamorgan, 2002
- 264 Rohit Sharma, India v Sri Lanka, 2014
- 257 D’Arcy Short, W Australia v Queensland, 2018
- 248 Shikhar Dhawan, India A v South Africa A, 2013
- 244 Prithvi Shaw, Northamptonshire v Somerset, 2023
Somerset made a decent start to their chase as Andy Umeed (77) and Lewis Goldsworthy (47) added 102, but both were among three victims in two overs for spinner Rob Keogh, with teenager James Rew lbw for a single as he tried to reverse sweep.
Sean Dickson made 52 off 48 balls and Curtis Campher 49 off 24, but wickets continued to fall as the required rate continued, and Keogh ended the game with the first ball of the 46th over, as Jack Brooks was caught in the deep by substitute fielder James Sales, with Somerset all out for 328. (BBC Sport)
