Daylight between the best and next

	Michael Clarke improved his best Test score by 161 runs at the SCG © Getty Images Enlarge

Unlike two artistic Australian batsmen before him, Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn, who never made a double-century in Tests, Michael Clarke smashed the 200-run barrier and powered to 329 against India in Sydney. He could have more than doubled his previous highest - 168 against New Zealand in Wellington - but made what is fast becoming a legendary declaration instead. Clarke's difference of 161 is the fifth-highest between a batsman's best and second-best Test scores.

One of several records that fell during Clarke's innings was the one for the highest Test score at the SCG, which was Tip Foster's 287 against Australia in 1903. Foster's performance was on Test debut and it remains the best score by a debutant, as well as the highest by an Englishman in Australia. His partnership of 130 with Wilfred Rhodes remained the record for the last wicket until 1973. Foster never scored another century. In fact, his next best performance was in his final Test - 51 against South Africa at The Oval in 1907. The difference of 236 between Foster's best and next best scores is the highest in the table below.

After his first ten Tests, the last of which was in 1925, England opener Andy Sandham had scored 287 runs at an average of 19.13, with a high score of 58. His next appearance for England was five years later, when at the age of 40, Sandham travelled to the Caribbean for a four-Test tour. He began the series with 152 and 51 in Barbados, but failed in the second and third Tests, in Trinidad and Guyana. In the last match, in Jamaica, Sandham doubled his previous best during a record-breaking innings of 325, Test cricket's first triple-century. He followed up with 50 in the second innings as well, but never played for England again.

Brendon Kuruppu, the former Sri Lanka wicketkeeper, had a high score of 201 not out in Tests, and a second best of only 46. His double-century was made on debut, against New Zealand in 1987, and is the slowest in Tests, taking 777 minutes and 548 balls. Kuruppu played only three more Tests for Sri Lanka.

Test cricket's first centurion, Charles Bannerman, is also in the table above. He made 165 out of Australia's 245 against England in the first-ever Test, at the MCG in 1877. His next best score, which he made in the second Test, was only 30.

Jason Gillespie's average of 15.64 was the third-lowest for a batsman before making a double-century. He had a high score of 54 not out in 70 Tests before he made an unbeaten 201 against Bangladesh in Chittagong in 2006. It turned out to be Gillespie's final Test as well. The ratio of 3.72 between Gillespie's best and second-best scores is the highest in Tests.

The largest difference between a player's best and second-best ODI scores belongs to former South Africa batsman Dave Callaghan, who played 29 matches between 1992 and 2000. Callaghan made 45 not out in his second ODI, against India in 1992, and that remained his best score until December 1994, when he was recalled to the XI after an 11-month absence. At Verwoerdburg, as Centurion was previously known, Callaghan scored 169 off 143 balls against New Zealand, the fifth-best ODI score at the time, to set up an 81-run victory. He had nine more innings but did not make more than 23.

West Indies batsman Xavier Marshall once held the record for most sixes in an ODI innings, until Shane Watson took it from him. Marshall hit 12 during his unbeaten 157 against Canada in August 2008. That effort was a more than four-fold improvement on his previous best, which was only 35, against Australia two months before.