This was a run-riot, if ever there was one. Over six hours or so at a Royal London Cup fifty-over fixture at Trent Bridge on Monday, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire played like they couldn't stop scoring runs.
They ended with 870 between them, just two short of the world record set by Australia and South Africa in that Johannesburg game in 2006 when the Proteas chased down 434.
Monday's fixture was almost as thrilling. Batting first, Nottingamshire put up an eye-popping 445/8 in their fifty overs, the second highest score in List A matches worldwide after Surrey's 496/4 in 2007. The tempo was set by Michael Lumb and Riki Wessels, who put on an opening stand of 342 in 39.3 overs, beating the previous highest partnership in England of 318 set by Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid at the 1999 World Cup.
Lumb was devastating, smashing 184 in just 156 balls, while Wessels was even more aggressive, getting to 146 in just 97 balls.
But Northamptonshire weren't giving up. South Africa's Rory Kleinveldt smashed 128 for just 64 balls batting at number five despite nursing an injury. But his wicket in the 47th over ultimately proved to be the difference between the two sides – Northamptonshire were bowled out for 425, just 20 runs short of the total with more than two overs to go, which would have been a breeze had they not run out of batters.
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