A. E. J. Collins (pictured) scored 628 runs not out, the highest recorded score in cricket until being surpassed in 2016.

Arthur Edward Jeune Collins was an English cricketer and soldier. He held, for 116 years, the record of highest score in cricket: as a 13-year-old schoolboy, he scored 628 not out over four afternoons in June 1899. Collins's record-making innings drew a large crowd and increasing media interest; spectators at the Old Cliftonian match being played nearby were drawn away to watch the junior school house cricket match in which Collins was playing. Despite this achievement, Collins never played first-class cricket. Collins's 628 not out stood as the record score until January 2016 when an Indian boy, Pranav Dhanawade, scored 1009 in a single innings.

In cricket, a batsman is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batsman is also not out while their innings is still in progress.

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game that is played between two teams of eleven players on a field, at the centre of which is a 22-yard pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. Two players from the batting team, the striker and nonstriker, stand in front of either wicket holding bats, while one player from the fielding team, the bowler, bowls the ball toward the striker's wicket from the opposite end of the pitch. The striker's goal is to hit the bowled ball with the bat and then switch places with the nonstriker, with the batting team scoring one run for each of these swaps. Runs are also scored when the ball reaches the boundary of the field or when the ball is bowled illegally.