James Hildreth has announced that he will retire at the end of the season. Whilst his pomp is somewhat behind him now, he remains a model for those of us who believe that batsmanship should contain some style as well as power. Good luck to him in whatever comes next.
He is the present holder of a title once held by Andy Moles, namely which current England qualified player has scored the most first class runs without playing a Test Match? He has nearly 18,000 of them. If you don't like spoilers, look away now, but next in line is Darren Stevens (about 17,000) and Steve Davies (in the 14,000s). Both those two could well be retiring at the end of the year too. There are then a few players betweeen 9,000 and 12,000 currently lead by Sam Northeast. I have often wondered if this title would eventually fall to Sam Hain ...