Amazing Cricket Facts and Stats
1) Sachin Tendulkar is in a class of his own – we’re more than 99% sure of that!
Given his popularity and demi-god status, there is hardly anything that remains unknown about Sachin Tendulkar. However, one trivia about him that is possibly relatively unknown is that over 99.37% of the cricketers to earn ODI caps have not scored even half as many runs as Sachin has. i.e.Out of the 2086 ODI cricketers that have played till date, 2073 have not even managed to score half of Sachin Tendulkar’s total ODI runs in their personal ODI career. Talk about class being permanent over 24 long years!
2) The paranormal Laker
Everyone knows that Jim Laker took 19 wickets against Australia in the Old Trafford Test of 1956. However, a lesser known fact is that Laker had figures of 10 wickets for 20 runs from 63 deliveries over the two innings at one stage, and that too at an average of 2 and a strike rate of 6.3. Paranormal, indeed
3) Longest-standing Test record? Not quite.
Charles Bannerman, of Australia, has quite a few distinctions to his name. He played the first ball in Test cricket history, hit the first boundary and also scored the first hundred. However, what stands out about Bannerman is the fact that he scored a colossal 165 runs out of a total of 245 in that innings, which is still the highest proportion of runs by a single player (67.35) in a completed innings of a Test match. Many believe that this is the longest-standing record in Test history. However, you would be surprised to know that this is not the case.
4) Oldest Test debutant
Who does, then? Well, that distinction belongs to England’s James Southerton. He was 49 years and 119 days old at the time of his Test debut, against Australia in the first ever Test match in 1877, making him the oldest Test debutant ever. Remarkably, there has been nobody till date who has made their debut at an age older than Southerton.
5) The hat-trick that never was
There are many bowlers who have taken a hat-trick in the past and there will be many more in the future. Even more so, there will be players who would be on a hat-trick countless times further. However, I doubt if there will ever again be an incident like the one involving Chris Tremlett. It will probably forever remain the closest a bowler gets to a hat-trick. After being on a hat-trick on his ODI debut, Tremlett’s following delivery hit the stumps but did not dislodge the bails, hence denying him a hat-trick.
6) The eldest Grace had more brute than grace
The elder brother of Sir WG Grace, EM Grace, was known to be one of the hardest hitters of a cricket ball. Owing to sprawling localities and too many closed spaces, the balls he struck for Thornbury were often lost. One umpire thought he had his bases covered when he kept up to nine spare balls at his disposal. It worked for a while, but Grace, on his way to a stupendous double century, used up the full quota of balls that the umpire had, and play simply had to be stopped!
7) Hey, forget about playing! It’s time to go home
Before the time when Test matches were limited to five days, there used to be timeless Test matches wherein the play went on until a definitive result was reached. In one such Test, where the English were on tour to South Africa, the match dragged well into the 10th day and the Englishmen were perilously close to chasing a world record target of 696. At the close of play on the 10th day, the Englishmen were comfortably placed at 654/5, requiring merely 42 for victory.
However, the captain of the ship that was supposed to take the team back to England refused to wait any longer, for reasons probably best known to him. And thus ended rather prematurely the story of what might have possibly been one of the most difficult all-time records to be broken.
8) The ball that went through the stumps
the award for the unluckiest bowler has to go to Mushtaq Ahmed. Bowling to Symcox, by some absolute miracle, Ahmed bowled a ball that passed between middle and off stump without dislodging a bail.
9) Mahaboob Alam- Nepal
Nepal cricketer made an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records when he became the first cricketer to take all 10 wickets in an ICC international cricket match on 25th May 2008.
He achieved this unique feat against Mozambique in Jersey, UK at the 2008 ICC World Cricket League Division V competition.
Nepal batting first put 238 on the board and while chasing, the hapless Mozambique side had to face the ‘wrath’ of the left-arm medium pacer who ran through their batting line-up.
Mozambique lost their last four wickets without adding anything to the score and eventually they were bowled out for only 19. Mahaboob’s final figures read 7.5-1-12-10. It was the first time such a thing happened in any ICC-recognized match
11) Virat Kohli is the only bowler to have got wicket off the 0th ball of his T20I career.
He dismissed Kevin Pietersen of his very first delievery at Manchester in 2011. The ball was called wide , so it was not a legitimate delivery.
12) Batsman bowled out most number of times in Test cricket: Rahul Dravid
This surely has to be the most unexpected record of the lot given that Rahul Dravid’s defense was so solid that he was given the sobriquet of ‘The Wall’. However, that very defence has been breached the most number of times in Tests, a record 54 times. During the first half of his 16-year long international career (1996-2004), he was bowled 26 times. This is mainly because he was evolving as a batsman and was therefore bound to be a little vulnerable. However, it was during the fag end of his career when his defence was breached time and again. Of the last 13 innings that the former Indian captain played, he was bowled in 9 of them. He had a particularly hard time during his final test series, the tour of Australia in 2011-12 , wherein he was bowled 6 times in 8 innings.
13) We all know that Kumar Sangakarra became the first batsman to score 4 consecutive ODI centuries.
Did you know that Herschelle Gibbs almost reached this record during 2002?
Gibbs scored 2 consecutive centuries against Kenya and India during the 2002 Champions Trophy in September. South Africa then played a bilateral series against Bangladesh in October where Gibbs scored his 3rd consecutive century in the 1st ODI of the series.
During the 2nd ODI, Bangladesh was dismissed for a small total of 154. Chasing 155, South Africa reached 149/0 close to the 23rd over. Gibbs was playing at 96. With just 6 runs to win, Bangladesh wicket keeper and captain Khalid Mashud asked the spinner Alok Kapali to bowl a bit wide down the leg side. Alok Kapali bowled it too wide along the leg side and the ball went to the boundary giving South Africa 5 more runs (Not sure if the plan was to dismiss him or to deny Gibbs a century).
With 1 more run to win, Gibbs just scored a single and remained unbeaten on 97, thus falling 3 short of becoming the first player to score 4 consecutive ODI centuries.
14) Tatenda Taibu and Virat Kohli are the only 2 players to have done all 3 - Bat, bowl and keep wickets - in the same ODI match.
15) Shahid Afridi has never scored more than 20 without the ball crossing the boundary at least once. His highest score without a boundary is 15.
16) India's 54 in that Champions Trophy final against Sri Lanka in Sharjah in 2000-01 was the lowest international total not to include a duck
18) Hitesh Modi & Subhash Ranchhoddas Modi (Kenya ) are the main father – son duo to play/direct in a One Day Internationals Cricket Match as a batsman and an umpire separately. The father decreed his child out LBW!
19) .Ishant Sharma is a culprit. Want to know why? Here is the reason.Alastair Cook – 294 Runs, Michael Clarke – 329 Runs and Brendon Mcculum 304 Runs. At all three occasion Ishant Sharma dropped their catch in the early part of the innings. Forgettable stat for Ishant.
20) Nothing changed in a hundred years: The first test match between Australia and England was held in 1877 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In this match, Australia defeated England by 45 runs. A hundred years later, in 1977, both teams played again at the same venue and the results were again the same. Australia defeated England by exactly 45 runs.
21) A wall has been erected in the honour of Rahul Dravid at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore (his hometown). Exactly 13,288 bricks were used in its construction. That’s the number of runs scored by him in test cricket.
22) Batsman to have hit most number of sixes in a Test innings : Wasim Akram
Given the array of big hitters like Sir Viv Richards, Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, Shahid Afridi etc. who have played the game till date, it is surprising that the record for the most number of sixes in a Test innings is held by Wasim Akram, a lower-order batsman. At the end of the innings, the Sultan of Swing remained unbeaten on 257 off 363 balls, against Zimbabwe in 1996. His breathtaking innings comprised of 22 fours and 12 sixes.
5. Peter Siddle - Only bowler in the history of cricket to take a hat-trick on birthday
Peter Siddle grabbed this hat-trick on his 26th birthday against England at Brisbane on 25th November, 2010 which was the 38th hat-trick in test cricket. Alastair Cook, Matt Prior and Stuart Broad were Siddle’s three victims on the birthday special hat-trick.
6. Ravichandran Ashwin - Only bowler to have dismissed all opposition players in a test series
Ravi Ashwin achieved this special landmark in the home serie sagainst Australia in 2013 , and this was the first and only time that a bowler achieved this amazing feat. During the series, Australia had used 16 players in 4 test matches and Ashwin had dismissed all of them once or more.
8. The 100-Test men
Three men - Stephen Fleming, Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock - all won their 100th caps in the same match, the first Test between South Africa and New Zealand in April 2006. Kallis was the happiest, as South Africa won and he scored exactly 100 runs in the match - which, fittingly, was played in Centurion.
