Cricketer hails record-breaking quadruple century

An East Sussex cricketer who scored a quadruple century in a single 40-over innings says the achievement was the "best sporting day of my life".

Ryan Welch, playing for Willingdon Cricket Club, scored 411 runs against Crowborough Cricket Club on Saturday, a feat thought to be a UK limited-overs record.

Welch, 26, said hitting the figure had been "absolutely mental", and that he had barely been able to process the feat since returning to work on Monday morning.

He said: "I could not score another run for the rest of my life now and I would not care."

Welch added: "I normally bat later in the innings and tend to play big shots, but never really get the chance to score that big, and from the first shot I felt I was on to a winner.

"It was a perfect, perfect day for batting, and the best sporting day of my life."

Willingdon scored a total of 571-1, and won the match by 438 runs.

Welch's innings, including 51 fours and 22 sixes, marks an English record for a limited overs game, according to the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, beating the previous record of 408 scored in Hinckley in Leicestershire in 1994.

A spokesperson for Wisden Cricketers' Almanack also said it was not aware of a higher score in the UK.

He admitted that there was some luck involved in his scoring, having been dropped on 76 runs and at one point scrambling back to the crease on his hands and knees to avoid being run out.

The batsman said that having rushed to the ground and arrived five minutes before the start of the game, he was asked to open the batting rather than starting further down the order.

Welch said he didn't really play cricket, having played only four games last year and about 30 games since leaving school.

He had previously only scored one century and his highest score was 113 runs, with a batting average of about 44 runs, he added.

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