Highest individual score in Test cricket: Brian Lara’s 400 not out, and the 25 biggest innings

Brian Lara remained at the crease for nearly 13 hours to register the highest individual Test score in 2004.

The highest individual score in Test cricket is 400 not out, made by Brian Lara for the West Indies against England at St John’s on 10 April 2004. He batted for 778 minutes — just under thirteen hours — faced 582 balls and hit 43 fours and four sixes, and it is the only time anyone has reached 400 in a Test innings.

It was the second time Lara had held the record. His 375 against England on the same ground in April 1994 had taken it from Garry Sobers, who had held it for 36 years, and Matthew Hayden took it off him with 380 against Zimbabwe at Perth in October 2003. Lara took it back six months later.

The innings that came closest, and then stopped

The most recent addition to the top of this list is the strangest. On 6 July 2025 at Bulawayo, Wiaan Mulder made 367 not out for South Africa against Zimbabwe and then declared the innings closed at 626 for 5 with himself 33 runs short of Lara’s 400. It is the fifth-highest score in Test history and the highest by a South African, and South Africa won by an innings and 236 runs.

Set against the rest of the list it is also the fastest of the very big innings by some distance: 367 from 334 balls, 49 fours and four sixes, at a strike rate of 109.88. Only one other three-hundred in Test history was struck at better than a run a ball, and it is the Indian record below.

The 25 highest individual scores in Test cricket

Complete to 6 September 2026. Balls faced were not recorded for the oldest innings on the list, which is why three rows carry no figure rather than a zero.

Score	Player	Team	Opponent	Venue	Balls	Date
400*	Brian Lara	West Indies	England	St John’s	582	10 Apr 2004
380	Matthew Hayden	Australia	Zimbabwe	Perth	437	9 Oct 2003
375	Brian Lara	West Indies	England	St John’s	538	16 Apr 1994
374	Mahela Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	South Africa	Colombo (SSC)	572	27 Jul 2006
367*	Wiaan Mulder	South Africa	Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	334	6 Jul 2025
365*	Garry Sobers	West Indies	Pakistan	Kingston	Not recorded	26 Feb 1958
364	Len Hutton	England	Australia	The Oval	847	20 Aug 1938
340	Sanath Jayasuriya	Sri Lanka	India	Colombo (RPS)	578	2 Aug 1997
337	Hanif Mohammad	Pakistan	West Indies	Bridgetown	Not recorded	17 Jan 1958
336*	Wally Hammond	England	New Zealand	Auckland	Not recorded	31 Mar 1933
335*	David Warner	Australia	Pakistan	Adelaide	418	29 Nov 2019
334*	Mark Taylor	Australia	Pakistan	Peshawar	564	15 Oct 1998
334	Don Bradman	Australia	England	Leeds	448	11 Jul 1930
333	Graham Gooch	England	India	Lord’s	485	26 Jul 1990
333	Chris Gayle	West Indies	Sri Lanka	Galle	437	15 Nov 2010
329*	Michael Clarke	Australia	India	Sydney	468	3 Jan 2012
329	Inzamam-ul-Haq	Pakistan	New Zealand	Lahore	436	1 May 2002
325	Andy Sandham	England	West Indies	Kingston	640	3 Apr 1930
319	Virender Sehwag	India	South Africa	Chennai	304	26 Mar 2008
319	Kumar Sangakkara	Sri Lanka	Bangladesh	Chattogram	482	4 Feb 2014
317	Chris Gayle	West Indies	South Africa	St John’s	483	29 Apr 2005
317	Harry Brook	England	Pakistan	Multan	322	7 Oct 2024
313	Younis Khan	Pakistan	Sri Lanka	Karachi	568	21 Feb 2009
311*	Hashim Amla	South Africa	England	The Oval	529	19 Jul 2012
311	Bob Simpson	Australia	England	Manchester	743	23 Jul 1964

How the record itself has moved

Andy Sandham’s 325 at Kingston in April 1930 was the first triple century in Test cricket, and it took the record off Tip Foster’s 287 from 1903. It has been beaten seven times since, and the table below is every one of them. Sandham held it for three months; Don Bradman took it that July.

Score	Player	Opponent	Set	Beaten
325	Andy Sandham	West Indies	3 Apr 1930	1930
334	Don Bradman	England	11 Jul 1930	1933
336*	Wally Hammond	New Zealand	31 Mar 1933	1938
364	Len Hutton	Australia	20 Aug 1938	1958
365*	Garry Sobers	Pakistan	26 Feb 1958	1994
375	Brian Lara	England	16 Apr 1994	2003
380	Matthew Hayden	Zimbabwe	9 Oct 2003	2004
400*	Brian Lara	England	10 Apr 2004	still standing

The two long reigns are the ones worth noticing. Len Hutton’s 364 at The Oval in 1938 stood for twenty years, and Sobers’ 365 not out at Kingston in 1958 stood for thirty-six. Then it moved three times in a decade — Lara in 1994, Hayden in 2003, Lara again six months later — and has not moved in the twenty-two years since.

Three hundred is rarer than a top-25 list makes it look

The table above is the top 25, and it stops at 311 because it has to stop somewhere. The complete set of scores of 300 or more in Test cricket is 33 innings by 29 batters, in the whole history of the format. Four men have done it twice — Bradman, Lara, Gayle and Sehwag — and 29 plus those four extra innings is 33, which is the check to run on any version of this claim. That group is covered in our list of the most triple centuries in Test cricket.

Two of the 25 have been made since the start of 2024: Harry Brook’s 317 against Pakistan at Multan in October 2024, and Mulder’s 367 not out nine months later. Zimbabwe have conceded two of the top five, to Hayden and to Mulder.

India’s highest individual Test score

Virender Sehwag holds it with 319 against South Africa at Chennai in March 2008, from 304 balls with 42 fours and five sixes. That is the second of only two innings of 300-plus in Test history struck at better than a run a ball, alongside Mulder’s.

India have three triple centuries in all: Sehwag’s 309 against Pakistan at Multan in March 2004, which was the first by an Indian, the 319 at Chennai four years later, and Karun Nair’s 303 not out against England at Chennai in December 2016. Only Sehwag’s 319 is inside the top 25.

Common questions

What is the highest individual score in Test cricket? Brian Lara’s 400 not out for the West Indies against England at St John’s in April 2004. Nobody else has reached 400.

Who has the highest Test score by a South African? Wiaan Mulder, 367 not out against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo in July 2025. He declared with South Africa on 626 for 5 rather than bat on towards Lara’s 400.

How many triple centuries have been scored in Test cricket? Thirty-three, by 29 different batters. Bradman, Lara, Gayle and Sehwag have two each.

What is India’s highest individual Test score? Virender Sehwag’s 319 against South Africa at Chennai in 2008. India’s other triple centuries are Sehwag’s 309 at Multan in 2004 and Karun Nair’s 303 not out at Chennai in 2016.

Who held the record before Brian Lara? Matthew Hayden, whose 380 against Zimbabwe at Perth in October 2003 lasted six months. Before Lara’s first record of 375 in 1994 it had belonged to Garry Sobers since 1958.

The same names run through our lists of the highest individual scores in ODI cricket and the most centuries in international cricket.

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Featured photo: AFP / Arif Ali