April the kindest month as county batters pile up the centuries

Maybe it was the sight of Rory Burns’s magnificent mane of brown hair, bouncing behind him as he trundled up to the wicket to deliver a tame dobbler against Warwickshire. Perhaps it was Sir Alastair Cook against Glamorgan, sporting an impish grin as he approached the crease at an angle, his arms fanned out and bent at the elbow before serving a ball high on humour but lacking any bite.

It could have been Michael Burgess’s 178 from No 8 at Edgbaston against Surrey in the opening round of the County Championship season. Or it was the drawn match in Derby a week later that saw Cheteshwar Pujara, Shan Masood and Tom Haines all register double tons. Then again it might have been any of the other 32 centuries scored across eight days of domestic cricket. Whatever prompted it, a counterintuitive idea spilled over the horizon and opened our eyes to its inarguable truth: batting in April in England isn’t so difficult after all.

“Growing up I took it as fact that you didn’t want to be an opening batsman in April,” says Nick Browne, who scored 107 at the top of the order for Essex on the season’s first day at Chelmsford. “I reckon most people believed that when they first came through. The numbers say otherwise, don’t they?”

Indeed they do. Since 2015, there have been more hundreds scored per game – 1.58 – than any other month in the year. Since 2002 teams have averaged 30.04 runs per wicket, a mere 0.96 runs per wicket less than the most productive month of July. Batting in the final innings is empirically less challenging in April where batters coming in from one to six averaged almost 35 – more than any other month – over the last 20 years. The avalanche of stats goes on.

Several reasons have been offered. Burgess, who also