Talk:Conrad Hunte

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[edit] Debut

After them walked the Pakistan team, and close on their heels walked Rohan Kanhai and myself. Rohan has got one of the soundest defences - the straightest bat - in the game, and this underlies his devasting attack in later years. The selectors were at the time still searching for an opening pair to follow the magnificent performances of Jeffrey Stollmeyer and Alan Rae in the early '50's. Rohan had opened in two Test matches on the West Indies tour of England in 1957. It was my first Test.

I took first strike to Fazal Mahmood. As soon as I had walked on to the turf my butterflies had disappeared. Now I crouched over my bat, feet slightly apart with my weight evenly distributed on each foot, the toe of my bat resting just behind my right foot at 'middle and leg' guard. I watched Fazal's eyes as he came running in with that smooth eight-step run of his. The ball pitched a full length on my middle and leg stump, and I pushed it through the vacant mid-on position for four runs. The crowd yelled their approval. I thought, 'Don't take any notice of them - concentrate.'

In came Fazal with his second bowl, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 steps. The ball pitched on my off stump, again too full a length. I leaned across the wicket, my left leg and left shoulder leading, and pushed the ball through the covers for four runs. The crowd, a packed house of 23,000 yelled their applause again. But Fazal settled down for a better length for the remaining four balls of the over, which I played very carefully without further score.

Playing to win by Conrad Hunte

[edit] Most runs in a series without a hundred

But he chose to continue playing, and in the next series, against Australia in 1965, set a record of 550 for the highest Test series aggregate without a century.

Bill Frindall has said the same thing in his column no.107 [1] but he is wrong (feels nice saying that !). The record is 553 by Mike Atherton Link

Add : unless you qualify it saying that Hunte's was a record at the time.

Tintin 14:08, 25 September 2005 (UTC)