Samit Patel smashes consecutive first-class double hundred

After a bleak start to the 2017 season, Samit Patel has scored tons of runs in the Country Championship and the Royal London One-Day Cup since the start of June. Representing the Nottinghamshire team he has plundered two double centuries and his career best score of 257*.

In 8 first-class innings in April and May, Samit failed to score even one fifty as his highest score was 45. However, he had some decent outings in the One-Day Cup scoring a century and two fifties in the 7 List A innings in June. His first FC fifty of the season came in the 2nd innings of the game against Derbyshire where he added 82. He followed it with an unbeaten 257 in the next game vs Gloucestershire going past his previous highest score in first-class cricket of 256 against Durham in 2013.

Later in his very next FC innings, Patel struck his 3rd double century in this format as he scored 247 vs Leicestershire. Thus he became the first player from Nottinghamshire to score double centuries in the consecutive first-class innings and the first England player since Graeme Hick in 1986 who did that for Worcestershire.

Royal London One-Day Cup

In between his two big double hundreds, Samit Patel featured in the Royal London One-Day Cup knockouts and scored 66 vs Somerset in the quarter-final and an unbeaten 122 over Essex in a record-breaking run-chase. This meant, he has scored a total of 774 runs in his last 5 innings across formats having been dismissed three times at an average 258.

With his two double centuries in consecutive innings, Patel became only the 44th player in first-class cricket to score back to back double tons and he will have a chance of becoming the first player to score double hundreds in three consecutive innings the next time he will be walking out to bat in an FC game. All the 43 players who have scored consecutive double centuries couldn’t convert it to three in a row.