Ranji Trophy | A 400 came in the weakest zone, yet it is pretty special

To score 400 in a First Class innings requires more than just the proper alignment of planets and stars. That only two Indians have made a quadruple in over nine decades of the Ranji Trophy gives you some idea. Mizoram batter Chinmay Sutar’s unbeaten 400 against Manipur might bring focus to bear on cricket in the Northeast. Some of it will be positive; most of it negative, taking away from the enormity of Sutar’s feat for being against a weak team in a weak zone.

But the negative could turn into a positive if it pushes the authorities into concentrating more on that region. “Northeast sides don’t get the exposure, but the spirit of the players is amazing,” Sutar told Cricinfo.

To make those runs requires a combination of skill, patience, character, luck, single-mindedness. This applies even to making them in a rubber-ball knockabout with your grandparents in the dining room with its artificial rules. The score bears repeating, 400 not out.

Bhausaheb Nimbalkar, the first Indian to get there, was batting on 443 for Maharashtra against Kathiawar – ten short of Don Bradman’s world record - when the rival captain conceded the match rather than submit to the ignominy of having the record score against his team. When people talk about how cricket was once gentleman’s game played in great spirit, you can counter with this example from 1948. Nimbalkar never played for India.

Sutar, 29, is only the 10th batter to make a quadruple. Bill Ponsford and Brian Lara did so twice, with Lara finishing on 501 not out in a few magical weeks which began with a Test record of 375 and saw him score seven centuries in eight innings.

The last man to score a quadruple before Sutar was Sam Northeast for Glamorgan against Leicestershire four years ago. “I was more nervous in the 190s than in the 390s,” he said later, having got to 400 with a six. West Indies batter Jimmy Adams said Northeast reminded him of a “young Mohammed Azharuddin.”

The first man to get into the 400s was England’s Archie Maclaren, a one-time secretary of Ranji, who made 424 in 1895. He was a great favourite of the writer Neville Cardus, but teammates and colleagues were less enthusiastic. Gideon Haigh put it mildly when he said, “MacLaren was a cricketer like many others, a lion on the field, a lamb everywhere else.”

For long, the world record was held by Hanif Mohammed, who was run-out in the nervous 490s, one short of the 500-mark.

He blamed the scoreboard, writing in The Guardian, “There were two balls left of the third day and the manually operated scoreboard showed I was on 496. I wanted to get to 500 so (skipper) Wazir could declare. I played a ball out to point where there was a misfield so I thought I’d chance the second, which would leave me needing two off the day’s last ball to get 500. But the fielder threw to the keeper’s end, and I was short. I thought I was gone for 497, but as I walked back, the scoreboard showed 499. They had been a little slow and hadn’t updated my score when I looked initially! I would never have pushed so hard if I knew I was on 498 and not 496!”

Aftab Baloch, the second Pakistani to get there, had a different complaint: “There was no photograph taken during the match; surprising for it was played at a Test centre.” Baloch played two Tests. When he toured England in 1974 he was given room 428 – his score — at one of the team hotels.

Hanif had been massaged with olive oil the night before his record. Lara probably wasn’t when he made 501 not out, the current record set in 1994. He was bowled off a no ball when on 12 and dropped by the wicketkeeper on 18 — the most expensive miss in all cricket.

Sutar, run out on 99 on debut, made his monster score in only his third innings in First Class cricket; Ponsford’s came in his fourth.

There might be an issue with records against Northeast teams. But a 400 is a 400 is a 400, as Gertrude Stein didn’t say.