30th June. The day of two fine assaults at Lord’s.
We are talking about the 2nd test of the 1924 tour of South Africa and 2nd test of the 1930 tour of Australia.
In 1924, England became the first team to score more than 500 runs in a day’s play. On day one South Africa were allout for 273. England batted late on the day and were on 28 for no loss. After a rest day on Sunday, the English openers Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliff resumed their partnership and kept playing their shots. By the time Sutcliff was gone England almost reached South Africa’s total. He went for 122 with the team total on 268. He was replaced by the stylish Frank Woolley who joined Hobbs and immediately started playing shots.
Hobbs went on to go past his highest score of 187 and reached his first double hundred. By the time he was out for 211, the team total reached 410. Patsy Hendren was the next man in. He and Woolley added 121 runs in one hour. During this time Woolley reached his hundred and once Hendren reached his fifty, England declared for 531/2. 503 runs were added by England on that day and it has been only repeated once in 2002. They went on to win the test match by an innings.
Six years later, on the same date and same venue, England were in receiving the end of an assault from the greatest of them all. On his first test innings at Lord’s Don Bradman scored an exceptional 254 in just over six hours to take his team to 720 for the loss of six wickets. This is the highest first-class score at Lord’s. England bowlers had no answer to 22-year-old Bradman and four bowlers conceded more than 100 runs. England put up 425 and 375 in their two innings but could not stop Australia from a seven-wicket win.
