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Grace Road (Leicester), July 25 (IANS): Glamorgan batter Sam Northeast has indicated he wants to play for England after the 32-year-old scripted history recently, smashing an unbeaten 410 in 450 balls and becoming just the first player this century to make more than 400 runs in a first-class innings in England's County Championship.
During his historic knock, Northeast flirted with the world record score of West Indies great Brian Lara, who had scored an unbeaten 501 for Warwickshire in 1994. However, his chance of surpassing Lara's record was cut short when Glamorgan captain David Lloyd declared his side's innings at 795/5 at lunch on day four of the Division Two contest against Leicestershire.
It was the ninth-highest score in first-class history and the highest any batter has totalled since Lara's record knock against Durham in Birmingham more than 28 years ago.
"At 32 I still believe that time is on my side to a certain degree. I would love to (play for England), so hopefully I can keep up putting numbers on the board," ICC quoted Northeast as saying on RSN radio on Monday.
"I don't expect to get 400 every week, but if I can be consistent and score some more runs by the end of the season I would like to put myself in the mix."
Northeast added he put his team first and declined the chance to try and surpass Lara's world record score.
"Matt Maynard, our coach, came (to me) and said if you want to go for it, then do it," Northeast said.
"We have got a game to win here, but I understand you are never going to get an opportunity to break the record. We sort of agreed as a team that wasn't going to be the case."
Northeast elaborated that many of his teammates wanted him to keep batting just to see how many runs he could score in the end, but for him winning was more important.
"A lot of my mates were saying 'stuff the team, go and get Lara's record. But at no stage did I think we weren't going to declare and I was going to go for the record," he added.
The right-hander said he was nervous while approaching his century early in his innings, but his mindset had changed late in his knock as he approached the magical 400-run milestone and chased quick runs for his side.
"To go to 400 with a six, I look back on it now and think, what was I thinking?" Northeast said. "I should have just knocked around some ones and made sure I got there, but at the time I just wasn't thinking that clearly and just going for everything."