December 18, 1948 – When Nimbalkar was denied a chance to shatter Don Bradman's record

Kathiawar team will go down in the history for their unsporting act that helped them to escape from conceding the highest individual first-class score and possibly one of the biggest totals. Kathiawar nearly conceded 600 runs first innings lead in the 1948/49 Ranji Trophy game against Maharashtra that started on December 16th in Pune. They later decided to concede game leaving Maharashtra’s innings unfinished and the opposition batsman Bhausaheb Nimbalkar stranded on 443.

After winning the toss, Kathiawar made 238 with help of a 77-run knock from their skipper Thakore Saheb of Rajkot. Nimbalkar walked out to bat after their opener Madhusudan Rege got out via hit-wicket for 47. He remained unbeaten on 24 on the first day and amassed 277 on the 2nd day to complete his triple century. On the 3rd day, he was racing towards the record of the highest individual score in first-class cricket of 452* at that time which held by Sir Donald Bradman for New South Wales in 1929/30 season.

At Tea on the 3rd day, Nimbalkar was unbeaten on 443 putting on 455 for the 2nd wicket with Kamal Bhandarkar who scored a double ton as Maharashtra posted 826/4 after batting for 180 overs. However, at the Tea break, Thakore Saheb of Rajkot, the Kathiawar captain spoke with his opposite number Raja Gokhale to either declare their innings or they would go home. Captain Gokhale was aware of the record that Nimbalkar could achieve on scoring ten more runs and negotiated the talks of the declaration.

The Kathiawar team left the venue to catch the train leaving the game unfinished after Maharashtra denied to declare their innings. This meant Nimbalkar missed out on a chance to surpass Bradman’s record though his team won the game by concession. The Maharashtrian’s innings that lasted 494 minutes including 49 fours and a six is still the only quadruple century in FC cricket. However, Hanif Mohammed with a 499 and Brian Lara with an unbeaten 501 managed to surpass Bradman’s record later.

December 18 can be known for record scores as on the same date in 1927 Australia’s Bill Ponsford scored 437 for Victoria to record the then highest FC score by bettering his own record of 429 which he created in 1923. Thus, Ponsford also became the first player in FC history to amass two quadruple hundreds with only Brian Lara achieving this feat after him as of today.