Chris Rogers prepares to join the illustrious 300 club

Former Australia opener Chris Rogers requires only 482 to become the eighth Australian batsman to reach 25,000 first-class runs. He has an opportunity to make it happen on the occasion of another milestone. The 38-year-old, who skippers Somerset in English County, is currently preparing for his 300th first-class appearance.

The veteran cricketer, his final county season after he quit Shield cricket last summer, has represented two Australian states and five county sides apart from playing 25-Tests in his international career will join the elite ‘300’ club.

Allan Border (385), Steve Waugh (356) and Greg Chappell (321) are all members of the 300 club, as are Michael Di Venuto (336 even though he never represented Australia at first-class level) and Justin Langer (360) who – with 28,382 runs – remains Australia’s most prolific first-class batsman.

“You never say never, it depends on how it goes but you can’t play forever and hopefully other stuff will come up,” Rogers told cricket.com.au earlier this year prior to heading to Taunton to begin his one-year contract with Somerset.

“Who knows, I might love it down in Somerset and it’s quite nice because Devon was where I started as an 18-year-old which is south-west – the next county along – and all the people there were big Somerset supporters.

“So I’ve kind of done the full circle and it’s nice to go back there and see some old friends.”

Rogers might glean motivation from the knowledge he is comfortably the ‘youngest’ of the three current players to have 20,000-plus first-class runs to their names.

Former England Test opener Marcus Trescothick, who plays with Rogers in the Somerset top-order, posted his 59th first-class century just days ago at age 40 to lift his career runs tally to 23,673.

West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul (25,472) recently completed his 25th first-class season with Guyana aged 41 in a team that also includes his 19-year-old son Tagenarine.

However, the introduction of the ‘Kolpak’ restrictions for counties looking to sign overseas players coupled with the need to incorporate a third (T20) format into domestic seasons and the continued culling of tour matches means the 25,000-run benchmark might be unreachable for those who follow.

Discarded England Test batsman Ian Bell, not yet 35, could play for a further five or more domestic seasons for Warwickshire to lift his total beyond his current 18,069 but would need to be consistently prolific in his twilight years to make that milestone.

While we talk about all these records, Sir Jack Hobbs’s humongous career tally of 61,760 first-class runs will remain unchallenged in coming times.

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