The reported record Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ridley Jacobs shared for the fifth wicket yesterday barely lasted overnight.
So advised by the media statistician, overnight television and radio bulletins and yesterday's morning's newspapers, including this one - reported that the 359 the left-handers added against Free State in the West Indies' opening first-class match on Friday and Saturday had surpassed the all-time South African mark for the fifth wicket.
The problem was that the record cited - 342 between Eric Rowan and Paul Gibbs for Transvaal against Northern Transvaal in the 1952-53 season - was for the fourth, not the fifth, wicket.
The authentic standard was 385 between Steve Waugh and Greg Blewett for Australia in the Johannesburg Test of 1996-97.
The Chanderpaul-Jacobs stand ranked as the second highest for the wicket, moving past the 355 added by Alan Lamb and JJ Strydom for Orange Free State against Eastern Province, also in Bloemfontein in the 1987-88 season.