by Mayukh Ghosh
August 17, 1898.
Leeds, Yorkshire.
John Tunnicliffe enters his room in an inn.
He finds that conditions are not great and the bed allotted for him is damp.
He decides to sit all night and not risk sleeping on that bed.
There's a match scheduled to start the very next day.....
Next morning he runs to catch the train to Chesterfield.
No breakfast that early in the morning.
Lord Hawke wins the toss and decides to bat.
Our man is never comfortable batting on a full stomach.
At twelve'o clock he goes out to bat with only one biscuit inside him.
Jack Brown looks in the mood and they reach 170 for no loss at lunch.
The crowd presses for the food and the arrangement is not very good.
Tunnicliffe only manages to get hold of a sandwich.
Brown gives four chances but Derbyshire doesn't take any of them.
He reaches 200.
Tunnicliffe goes past 150.
Then they break Abel and Brockwell's record first wicket stand of 379.
At that point, at 4:40, Derbyshire captain Sydney Evershed, rather unusually, expresses his wish to take a short tea break.
Tunnicliffe welcomes it wholeheartedly.
He later says: "I hardly know how I kept up my end. Whether it was the tea or the stoppage I don't know, but I felt that I should like to be out as quickly as possible."
Lord Hawke, meanwhile, scheduled to come at number three, after hours of waiting to get in, throws his pads away.
At the end of the day, after 4 hours and 45 minutes of play, Brown and Tunnicliffe takes the score to 503.
Next morning, they score 51 runs in 19 minutes before Tunnicliffe hits a ball high into the air above slip.
Frank Davidson takes the catch in second attempt.
554 for 1.
Tunnicliffe departs for 243.
Not many become aware of John Tunnicliffe's plight that day but they do celebrate the feat of the two Yorkshire openers.
34 years later, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe score one more run.
A loyal Yorkshireman, Tunnicliffe, post retirement, becomes a coach at Clifton College in Bristol.
He becomes more well known as a Wesleyan lay preacher.
Tunnicliffe was an attractive stroke-maker in his youth. Then, at Lord Hawke's instructions, he systematically cut out the riskier shots.
"He would have cut off his hand for me.", once wrote Lord Hawke.
Ideal for the Yorkshire set up.
But 'Long John' is long forgotten.
Like many others from those pre-war days.
John Tunnicliffe was born 26 August 1866.