Unbeatable cricket records
HERE are some cricket feats and records – several of which I believe will remain forever. They’re listed in no specific order:
• The bowling performance of Sri Lankan Chaminda Vaas in a 2003 World Cup encounter hit the sporting headlines the world over. The fast bowler took a hat-trick with the first three balls of the match against Bangladesh
• Playing for England against Afghanistan at Old Trafford in a World Cup game in 2019, skipper Eoin Morgan broke the record for hitting the most sixes in a single innings –
17. He also struck four fours in his knock of 148 off 71 balls. The previous record was jointly held by Rohit Sharma (India) and AB de Villiers (South Africa), both with 16 sixes
• Indian opener Sharma who has captured the world of cricket with his classy batting skills, is the only player in ODIs to have three double hundreds to his credit, and his individual score of 264 against Sri Lanka in 2014 looks impossible to break. This magnificent innings included 33 boundaries and nine sixes. He eventually fell to the last ball of the innings
• In the 1920s/30s cricket fans admired the mind-boggling batting figures of Jack Hobbs who during his career scored 61,237 runs, including 197 centuries. A Surrey great, he played until he was 50
• Richards’ fellow West Indian, Phil Simmons, produced some quite amazing bowling figures in a 1992 World Cup match against Pakistan in Australia. The spinner conceded only three runs in his ten overs and took four wickets in the process
• England opener Graham Gooch’s feat of scoring 456 runs
in the Test Match against India at Lords in 1990 will take some beating for sure. The Essex captain smashed 333 runs in his first innings and 123 off 113 balls in his second
• Some of Chaminda Vaas’s bowling feats in ODIs were quite remarkable. In one match in 2001, the Sri Lankan left-arm quickie bagged eight Zimbabwean wickets for just 19 runs to become the only bowler in the history of the game to dismiss eight batsmen in a oneday international
• Australia have registered 16 consecutive Test Match wins on two occasions - the first between 1999-2001, under skipper Steve Waugh, and the second between 2005-2008, under Ricky Ponting. The Aussies achieved these victories with a quite brilliant bowling attack which included Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Jason Gillespie, and a world-class batting line-up of Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist
• Jim Laker’s amazing Test Match bowling figures of 19-90 for England against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956 (10-57 and 9-33) is a record which will stand forever! His Surrey team-mate Tony Lock denied him all 20 wickets in the match!
• Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan, one of the greatest spin bowlers of all time, baffled batsmen the world over for 19 years (1992-2010 inclusive), claiming 800 Test wickets, 534 in ODIs and 13 more in T20 Internationals. His overall total of 1,374 wickets is surely unbeatable!
• Sachin Tendulkar’s international batting record was superb. In 198 matches, the little Indian amassed 15,837 Test runs which included 51 centuries. He also struck a further 18,426 runs in ODIs, and his career total of 34,273 runs at international level is unlikely to be bettered
• And to end with I have to cover the career of the great Don Bradman. The Australian scored a staggering 974 runs in the 1938 Test series against England. His knocks were 8 & 131 at Trent Bridge, 254 & 1 at Lord’s, 334 at Headingley, 14 at Manchester and 232 at The Oval. The closest anyone has come to breaking Don’s tremendous record is the 829 runs accumulated by the West Indian Viv Richards, which was also against England in 1976. His astonishing batting average in Test cricket alone will never, ever, be beaten – that’s a fact! In 80 Test innings, he averaged 99.94. It would have been over 100 if he hadn’t been bowled for duck by Warwickshire’s Eric Hollies in his last Test against England in 1948. And for good measure, the ‘Don’s overall first-class career average of 95.14 is unlikely to be beaten either