Category: Cricket

In the history of test cricket, several English batsmen, notably Geoff Boycott, Chris Tavare and, before them, Trevor ‘Barnacle’ Bailey, have garnered a reputation for snail-paced scoring, so there is a certain irony in the fact that the slowest century in test cricket history was scored against England. In the first test of a three-match series between Pakistan and England, staged at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore in December, 1977, England won the toss and elected to bowl. Twenty-one-year-old Mudassar Nazar opened the batting for Pakistan and, with the home side reduced to 49-2 on a difficult wicket, effectively ‘dropped anchor’. At stumps on the first day, Mudassar was 52 not out and he continued in similar vein when play resumed the following morning.

Indeed, even as his hundred approached, Mudassar showed no urgency in his batting and, if anything, became even more defensive. Just one short of his century, the increasingly fractious crowd invaded the pitch, resulting in running fights with the police. The players took an early tea and play resumed, albeit 25 minutes late, with Mudassar still ‘poised’ on 99 not out. Finally, after facing 419 deliveries and spending 557 minutes, or the best part of nine-and-a-half hours, at the crease, Mudassar reached a hundred. When he was finally caught and bowled by off-spin bowler Geoff Miller, he had scored 114 off 449 balls in 591 minutes, at a strike rate of 25.38.

On August 25, 2020, on the rain-affected fifth day of the third, and final, Test against Pakistan at the Rose Bowl, Southampton, England fast bowler James ‘Jimmy’ Anderson had Pakistani captain Azhar Ali caught at first slip; in so doing, Anderson made history by becoming the first bowler of his kind to reach 600 Test wickets.

Anderson was already the most successful fast bowler in Test history, having beaten the previous record for wickets taken, 563, set by Australian Glenn McGrath, when dismissing Indian fast bowler Mohammed Shami at the Oval in September, 2018. He showed the level of skill that many online casino australia fans are keen to harness! Nevertheless, Anderson, who made his Test debut in 2003, joined an elite band of just three bowlers – interestingly, all of them exponents of the ‘dark art’ of wrist spin – to have previously reached the 600-wicket milestone in Test cricket.

Top of the all-time list of Test wicket-takers, by some way, is Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, with 800 wickets in 133 matches. Next best is Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne who, in 2006, became the first bowler to take 700 Test wickets and finished his career with 708 wickets in 145 matches. Third comes Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble with 619 wickets in 132 Test matches. All are talented individuals, who balanced commitment to their craft with their downtime. I have the latter part of that equation sorted when I’m chilling on www.leroijohnny.com/fr. The former aspect though is a work in progress! Muralitharan played his final Test against India at the Galle International Stadium, Sri Lanka in July, 2010. Immediately beforehand, Kumble, who had retired from cricket in November, 2008, said of him, ‘When you see that Murali has played exactly the same number of Tests as me and taken 173 wickets more, you begin to understand the magnitude of his achievement.’

Even in modern limited-overs cricket, notably Twenty20, which is notoriously biased in favour of batsmen, six sixes off an over is hardly an everday occurrence. It is all the more remarkable, then, that the first batsman to achieve the ‘perfect’ score of thirty-six runs off six legal deliveries in first class cricket was West Indian all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers on August 31, 1968. On that occasion, Sobers was captaining Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in a County Championship at St. Helen’s, Swansea, and faced fellow all-rounder Malcolm Nash.

Typically, Nash was a medium-pace bowler but, at the time, was experimenting with slow, left-arm spin. Having been hit for four consecutive sixes, Nash gave his fifth delivery ‘a little bit more air’ and, briefly, his tactics appeared to have paid off; Sobers thrashed the ball as far as the long-off boundary, where it was caught by Roger Davis. However, having taken the catch, Davis overbalanced and came down on his backside on the boundary fence. Sobers started to walk, but after a momentary consultation, umpire Eddie Philipson signalled six, and Sobers returned to the crease.

On the final ball of the over, Nash attempted to deceive Sobers by bowling a quicker, seam-up delivery, round the wicket, off a short run-up. However, he only succeeded in producing what was, by his own admission, ‘the worst ball of the day, never mind the over’, which Sobers duly dispatched out of the ground over mid-wicket.

According to Guinness World Records, the shortest Test match ever was the first Test between England and Australia at Trent Bridge, Nottingham in June, 1926, in which there were just 50 minutes play and 17.2 overs bowled. That match was, of course, drawn, but the shortest completed Test match was the fifth, and final, Test between Australia and South Africa at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in February, 1932. Ironically, for a so-called ‘timeless’ match, it was all over in five hours and 53 minutes, albeit spread over three days, with a rest day in between, and a total of 109.2 overs.

On slow, easy and apparently harmless pitch, South Africa won the toss and elected to bat. They had, however, reckoned with the ability of Australian leg-spinner Herbert ‘Dainty’ Ironmonger to extract turn from the most innocuous of wickets. On Friday, February 12 – a day on which all twenty first-innings wickets fell – South Africa were skittled out for just 36, with Ironmonger taking five wickets for just six runs off his 7.2 overs. Australia, too, struggled to 153 all out, such that, at the close of play on the first day, South Africa were already 5-0 in their second innings.

The second day, Saturday, February 13, was washed out as was Sunday, February 14, which was a shceduled rest day in any case, so play did not resume until after lunch on the third day, Monday, February 15. When it did, ‘Dainty’ carried on where he had left off, taking another six wickets for 18 runs – and record match figures of 22.5-12-24-11 – and reducing South Africa to 45 all out in their second innings. Australia won the match by an innings and 72 runs and the five-match series 5-0.