Royal London One Day Cup Final

Alex Hales’s record-breaking 187 not out helps Nottinghamshire beat Surrey
• Surrey 297-9, Nottinghamshire 298-6; Notts win by four wickets
• Hales makes highest individual one-day score at Lord’s off 167 balls

Not many one-day cricket records last 52 years, and fewer still that involve the combination of Geoffrey Boycott and swift scoring. But Boycott scored 146 when Yorkshire thrashed Surrey in the 1965 Gillette Cup and, until Alex Hales’s scintillating unbeaten 187 in Nottinghamshire’s four-wicket win, it remained the highest score in a Lord’s final. Remarkably, Boycott’s record had come within three of being toppled earlier in the day as Mark Stoneman’s unbeaten 144 had carried Surrey to 297 for nine; Hales, largely on his own, meant Surrey lost their third straight final.

“In a one-day game?! That’s a surprise!” said a laughing Hales, when learning the identity of the man whose record he had broken. Boycott was not the only player to have a record pilfered: this was the highest individual one-day score at Lord’s, and the highest for Nottinghamshire, too. Hales has become a remarkable, dominant white-ball opener; he has England’s first and hitherto only T20 international century (and three of the highest scores in that format), and their highest ODI score, as well as this masterpiece. “The best I’ve seen, pure and simple,” was the verdict of Chris Read, the winning captain, with whom Hales shared the match’s defining partnership, 137 for Nottinghamshire’s sixth wicket.

He is not a man to drop when he has only nine, as poor Ollie Pope, 19 years old and playing only his sixth List A game, now knows. He was at cover when, off the bowling of Sam Curran, Hales hit hard at head height and the ball popped in, then out. Jason Roy, a man who knows a thing or two about Hales’s ability, wandered over from point to console Pope but, as Hales drove, flicked and hoicked away, the drop would come to cost 178 runs.

Until the 26th over, when Read joined Hales, by then on 116 in Notts’ 150 for five, there was a constant state of turmoil at the other end. Only Brendan Taylor, with 11, had reached double figures. Even as Read, playing his final game at Lord’s for the county he has served with such distinction since 1997, compiled a classy, intelligent 58, Hales finished with 63% of the runs. “I was acutely aware that the partnership needed to be built,” said Read. “Michael Lumb came to me shortly after he got out, and said to me: ‘He’s on today,’ and he knows him very well. When he’s on, there are few better. I just had to stay with him and knock it about.”

Even before Lumb was pinned plumb in front by Sam Curran, Hales had driven with vigour through cover and pulled the day’s first six (he would finish with four, to go with 20 fours). Moments after Riki Wessels was lbw to Ravi Rampaul, he brought up a 35-ball fifty, and was soon taking three successive fours off Tom Curran – driven through cover and down the ground, then thrashed through midwicket. Samit Patel, who had bowled so well for three for 51 earlier, pulled Rampaul to the man at fine leg, then Taylor feathered Jade Dernbach behind. Steven Mullaney never settled, but was unlucky to be adjudged lbw to Sam Curran.

Surrey’s had been a curious innings. Stoneman and Roy, helped by some awful catching (the latter was dropped first ball of the match at slip, and Stoneman at cover on 32) raced to 83 for none in 11 overs, before the introduction of Patel, who had Roy caught at cover off the leading edge with his very first ball. The arrival of Kumar Sangakkara was unsurprisingly unobtrusive and the cruise continued. When he was brilliantly caught by Read standing up to Mullaney, Surrey were still sitting pretty on 141 for two.

Stoneman was the glue holding Surrey together, but at the other end a procession began as Scott Borthwick meekly turned Patel to Mullaney at midwicket and, in Patel’s next over, Mullaney, by now at slip, snaffled Pope. Between times, Ben Foakes played down the wrong line, was bowled, and Mullaney had a hand in all five wickets to fall. Surrey had lost four for 39.

All this meant Stoneman, batting with the purpose of a man in the form of his life determined to prove the selectors wrong after his Test snub, calmed; his first 50 had taken 45 sweetly timed balls, but he finished with 144 from 149, and risks were rare. The support from the Currans and Gareth Batty was valuable but brief, and none could stay with him long enough for the late charge required. A target of 298 felt eminently achievable for a side that scored 802 runs in the two knockout games that carried them to Lord’s.

Hales and Read ensured that was the case, and that Stoneman and Boycott were trumped. Read, for whom this was a second Lord’s final win as captain after the 2013 YB40 (a triumph in which seven of the 11 here played), was caught on the fence pulling with 11 required, but it mattered not: James Pattinson, a seminal figure this season as they top Division Two and playing his last game for the county, took the slack from the tiring Hales to finish the job.