Highest Cricket Test Match Team Innings Scores

Overview:-

• Jayasuriya fell for 340 after 25 minutes, 35 short of Brian Lara’s highest Test score of 375, but when stumps were finally drawn on a match that yielded 1,489 runs and a mere 14 wickets, Sri Lanka, at 952 for 6, were well clear of England’s 903 for 7 declared against Australia at The Oval that had stood since 1938 as Test cricket’s highest team total.
• It was irrelevant to the Test as a genuine contest, but the 30,000 afforded free admission principally to witness Jayasuriya reach his goal and packed into the Premadasa Stadium were exultant. It was a further psychological fillip to Sri Lanka’s status as undisputed champions of the one-day game.
• Upali Dharmadasa, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka, said: “We had set ourselves the target of mastering Test cricket as we have the one-day variety by the year 2000 and our batsmen have to learn to occupy the crease, which is one of the secrets to success in the traditional game. This was a tremendous performance and means a lot to us in the development of a real Test team.”
• On the first four days of the match no more than 3,000 spectators were in the ground and it was only Jayasuriya’s proximity to Lara’s mark and the open gates that attracted a full house on the final day. Already there has been talk in this part of the world, not least from the new president of the International Cricket Council, Jagmohan Dalmayia, of streamlining Tests to prevent their demise.

History’s highest Test totals:-

• 952-6 d Sri Lanka v India, Colombo, 1997
• 903-7 d England v Australia, The Oval, 1938
• 849 England v West Indies, Kingston, 1929-30
• 790-3 d West Indies v Pakistan, Kingston, 1957-58
• 765-6 d Pakistan v Sri Lanka, National Stadium, Karachi, 2008-09