Stats: Highest partnerships for the first wicket in List A cricket
Royal London One Day Cup game between Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire at the Trent Bridge turned out to be a bowlers’ graveyard as 870 runs have been scored in the day. Nottingham’s Michael Lumb and Riki Wessels put on a 342-run stand for the opening wicket helping his side to post a huge total of 445/8.
Their stand is now the 2nd highest for the opening wicket in List A cricket standing only behind Morne van Wyk and Cameron Delport’s unbeaten 367-run stand for Dolphins in 2014. Lumb-Wessels stand is the highest for the first wicket in List A in England overhauling Gloucestershire’s Tony Wright and Nicholas Trainor’s 311-run stand in 1997 vs Scotland at Bristol.
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Lumb-Wessels have broken the record for least balls taken to bring up 300-run opening stand. They took 211 balls for the milestone beating Raval-How stand by just 1 ball as the New Zealand pair took 35.2 overs for their 300th partnership run.
So far, 5 triple century stands have been recorded in List A Cricket for the opening wicket, the most for any other wicket. None of those 5 have come in ODI Cricket. Interestingly, 3 out of the 5 triple century stands for the opening wicket have come for since 2013.
Highest opening stand in ODI Cricket is 286 by Upul Tharanga and Sanath Jayasuriya pair for Sri Lanka against England at Leeds in 2006. Upul Tharanga and Ali Brown are the only players to feature in two different 275+ opening stands in List A Cricket. Both the big stands of Tharanga came while playing for Sri Lanka in ODIs and Ali Brown’s both have come while he was playing for Surrey.
Top 20 partnerships for the first wicket in List A Cricket:
| Partners | Runs | Team | Opposition | Ground | Match Date |
| Morne van Wyk, Cameron Delport | 367* | Dolphins | Knights | Bloemfontein | 17-Oct-14 |
| Michael Lumb, Riki Wessels | 342 | Nottinghamshire | Northamptonshire | Nottingham | 6-Jun-16 |
| Ghulam Ali, Sohail Jaffar | 326* | Pakistan International Airlines | Agriculture Development Bank | Sialkot | 13-Apr-01 |
| Jeet Raval, Jamie How | 321 | Central Districts | Northern Districts | Hamilton | 6-Mar-13 |
| Tony Wright, Nicholas Trainor | 311 | Gloucestershire | Scotland | Bristol | 24-Jun-97 |
| Sajid Ali, Shahid Anwar | 297 | National Bank of Pakistan | Bahawalpur | Karachi | 20-Sep-91 |
| James Benning, Ali Brown | 294 | Surrey | Gloucestershire | The Oval | 29-Apr-07 |
| Upul Tharanga, Sanath Jayasuriya | 286 | Sri Lanka | England | Leeds | 1-Jul-06 |
| Ian Ward, Ali Brown | 286 | Surrey | Glamorgan | The Oval | 19-Jun-02 |
| Upul Tharanga, Tillakaratne Dilshan | 282 | Sri Lanka | Zimbabwe | Pallekele | 10-Mar-11 |
| Usman Khawaja, Chris Hartley | 280 | Queensland | Tasmania | Sydney | 18-Oct-14 |
| Aakash Chopra, Shikhar Dhawan | 277* | Delhi | Punjab | Delhi | 28-Feb-08 |
| Ben Dunk, Tim Paine | 277 | Tasmania | Queensland | Sydney | 18-Oct-14 |
| David Boon, Geoff Marsh | 277 | Australians | Marylebone Cricket Club | Lord’s | 11-May-89 |
| James Marshall, Brendon McCullum | 274 | New Zealand | Ireland | Aberdeen | 1-Jul-08 |
| Kepler Wessels, Philip Amm | 274 | Eastern Province | Natal Country Districts | Empangeni | 27-Oct-90 |
| Mark Pettini, Jason Gallian | 269 | Essex | Surrey | The Oval | 11-May-08 |
| John Stephenson, Jason Laney | 269 | Hampshire | v Norfolk | Southampton | 25-Jun-96 |
| Tejinder Singh, Amit Pagnis | 265* | Railways | v Bengal | Chennai | 2-Mar-03 |
| Abhinav Mukund, Wasim Jaffer | 265 | India Blue | v India Green | Nagpur | 10-Oct-09 |
(Stats updated till 6th June, 2016)
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