1. Sunil Gavaskar was out off the first ball of a Test match thrice in his career: Sunil Gavaskar was the first batsman to reach 10,000 Test runs and he ended his career scoring 34 Test centuries. But did you know he was out three times off the first ball of a Test? The bowlers to dismiss him were:
Batsman | Bowler | Match | Venue | Year |
Sunil Gavaskar(Ind) | Geoff Arnold (Eng) | Ind v Eng | Birmingham | 4-8 Jul 1974 |
Sunil Gavaskar(Ind) | Malcolm Marshall (WI) | Ind v WI | Kolkata | 10-14 Jul 1983 |
Sunil Gavaskar(Ind) | Imran Khan (Pak) | Ind v Pak | Jaipur | 21-26 Feb 1987 |
2. Afridi used Sachin Tendulkar bat to hit fastest 100 in ODI’s: But not many know the fact that the new-comer Afridi used Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar’s bat to attain this iconic feat. Tendulkar gave his bat to Waqar Younis and during their nets session, the latter gave his bat to Afridi.
As quoted in Gulfnews.com, Afridi said, “I had just got into the Pakistan team and during nets in Nairobi Wicky Bhai [Waqar Younis] gave me a bat and said, play with this and see. It is Sachin’s bat. I tried it out it; it felt good and played with it in my first ever one-dayer. I scored that innings of 100 in 37 balls with the same bat.”
Currently the record for the fastest ODI hundred belongs to South African captain AB de Villiers, who inscribed his name with gold when he slammed a 31-ball century in early 2015 against West Indies.
3.There’s only one person who witnessed Jim Laker and Anil Kumble taking 10 wickets in an innings: As a 10-year-old Richard Stokes witnessed Jim Laker taking all 10 wickets in the 1956 Old Trafford Test against Australia. Forty-three years later he was in India watching the India vs Pakistan Test and saw Anil Kumble taking all the 10 wickets in an innings. These were the only two Tests Stokes has watched in his life.
Player | Overs | Mdns | Runs | Wkts | Econ | Team | Opp. | Venue | Match Date |
J Laker | 51.2 | 23 | 53 | 10 | 1.03 | ENG | AUS | Manchester | 26-Jul-56 |
A Kumble | 26.3 | 9 | 74 | 10 | 2.79 | IND | PAK | Delhi | 04-Feb-99 |
4.Two Robin Singhs have played only one Test Match for India and both never got another chance to play:
Robin Singh – India’s one-day specialist played one Test match in his career against Zimbabwe in 1998. His namesake Robin Singh junior was a fast bowler who played his only Test against New Zealand in 1999