Highest score carrying bat through a completed innings

New Zealand opener Tom Latham’s 264 not out against Sri Lanka at Wellington’s Basin Reserve, New Zealand, on 16–17 December 2018 is the highest-ever Test score by a player carrying his bat – i.e., an opening batsman who is not out at the end of the innings after the dismissal of all 10 team-mates.

Glenn Turner's 223 not out for New Zealand against the West Indies on 17–19 February 1972 held this record for more than 45 years before Alastair Cook’s 244 not out for England against Australia on 27–28 December 2017.

New Zealand’s first-innings total of 578 all out is the highest-ever Test score (from 2,335 matches) by a team in which a player has carried his bat – surpassing England’s 491 against Australia in December 2017. Fifty-two Test matches, dating back to 1889, have featured a player carrying his bat when 10 wickets have fallen in the innings.

Latham’s 264 not out (the highest Test score by any player in 2018, as of 19 December): 489 balls, 694 minutes, 21 fours, one six. New Zealand’s innings lasted 157.3 overs (945 balls). Latham was 121 not out at stumps on day two (16 December).

Despite amassing a first-innings lead of 296 runs and claiming three early wickets in the visitors’ second innings, New Zealand (578 all out) were unable to force a win in Wellington, with Sri Lanka (282 all out and 287 for 3) holding on for a draw thanks to Kusal Mendis (141 not out) and Angelo Mathews (120 not out), who survived 5.4 overs on day three, the whole of day four (the first time since February 2008 that no wicket had fallen in an entire day’s play in a Test match) and 13 overs of a final day curtailed by rain. Their unbroken partnership was worth 274 runs.