Today I am taking leave of my regular topics, and turning to sports, and in sport it is Cricket. There are many records, which are achieved by cricket players (Batsman, Bowler/Wicket keeper & Fielder), and most of them are broken. Today I am writing about some records which will be highly impossible to break. There are 10 such records, which are listed below
At No.10 is- Record created by the great Australian Batsman Sir Donald Bradman. During his career he played only 52 test matches and scored 6996 runs, with 29 centuries, which included 12 double centuries. The most wonderful thing of his career was he scored these test runs at an average of 99.96. If he had scored one run in his last innings, where he was out for zero, his batting average would have been perfect 100. Next batsman in the highest average list is Steve Smith, whose average is in the range of 62. So this is an unbreakable record.
At No.9 is a spinner Sunil Narain of West Indies. In a Carribean T20 league match, while playing for Amazon Warriors, he created a record which everyone had earlier thought was impossible to create. He created this record while defending 12 runs in super over against Red Giant. What he did was unbelievable, his first four balls were dot balls, and on 5th & 6th ball he got wickets, thus becoming the first bowler ever to achieve maiden super over. This record of his, impossible to even equal, and even it is equalled, he will always remain 1st bowler to achieve this.
At No.8 is MS Dhoni of India- Ms Dhoni is the only captain who has won 3 trophies of ICC conducted cricket tournament. In 2007 he won ICC’s T20 World Cup, in 2011 he won ICC’s ODI World Cup and in 2013 ICC’s Champion Trophy, thus becoming the only captain to win all the 3 trophies. This record can not be broken as ICC has stopped the Champion Trophy tournament.
At No.7 is West Indian medium pace bowler Phil Simmons. While playing against Pakistan in ODI match in 1992, in Australia. He bowled a spell of 10 overs just conceding only 3 runs, bowled 8 maiden overs and took 4 wickets. This is the most economical bowling ever recorded in One Day game till now. Before this the best was by Indian Bishen Singh Bedi, who bowled 12 overs for 6 runs and took 1 wicket. Simmon’s this record has not been broken for 27 years.
At No.6 is England’s off Spinner Jim Laker. While playing in Ashes series test match in 1956, he took 9 wickets in Australia’s first innings, and one wicket was taken by Graham Lock, Laker that time must have felt very low, because he could not take the 10th wicket. But destiny has something else in store for him, and destiny smiled on him in the Australian’s second innings when he completed the 10 wickets haul. His off spinning bowling was really unplayable that day. In the process he became the first bowler ever to take 10 wickets in an inning, overall he took 19 wickets in test match, a record which has remained unbroken for 63 years, and looks like it will always remain unbroken. India’s Anil Kumble matched his one feat when he took 10 wickets in an inning against Pakistan in 1999, but no bowler has achieved other feat of 19 wickets in a match.
At No.5 is Sri Lankan team, it happened in the year 1997 , when playing in test match against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, India batting first scored 537 runs for 8 wickets, while replying this score, Sri Lanka crossed the same by losing only 1 wicket, and in the end they scored 952 runs for 6 wickets. In the process Sri Lankan team created a world record for scoring the highest runs in an inning. This record seems to be looking un breakable.
At No.4 is- What is the maximum run which can be scored from one ball. The answer is 286 runs in one ball. This happened in 19th century in the year 1894. It was a first class match between Victoria and Scratch XI. One of the Victorian batsman while batting lofted the ball, which got stuck in the tree in the ground. Batsmen started running, Victorian captain requested the umpires to stop the match, but at that time there was no such rule. By the time ball was retrieved batsmen had run 286 runs. In present time, with the prevailing rules, this record is not possible.
At No.3 is Sri Lankan spinner Muralitharan. In his career he has taken 1347 international wickets ( 800 Test Wickets, 534 ODI wickets and 13 T20 wickets). In the present times you can not even imagine that this record will be ever broken. Next on the list is Shane Warne who has taken 1001 wickets, which is far far less than Muralitharan.
At No.2 is all rounder Wilfred Rhodes of England. He started playing in 1898 and he played first class cricket for next 32 years. During his playing career he scored 39,969 runs, took 4202 wickets and took five wickets in an inning 287 times and 10 wickets in a match 68 times. Over all he played 1002 matches. It is difficult to imagine now, that how someone can play for 32 years. This record is really can not be broken.
At No.1 is, Indian spinner RG Nadkarni, popularly known as Bapu Nadkarni. In a test match against England, played at Madras in 1963. He bowled 32 overs for 5 runs, with 27 maiden overs. In this spell he bowled 21 continuous maiden overs, which is a record which has remained unbroken for 56 years. It looks like this record will remain unbroken for ever, as in the modern times game has changed so much, that you can not imagine batsmen remaining run less for so many overs.
So friends, how do you like these cricketing records. Before I stumble on these details, which I have shared with you, out of these 10 records I knew only about 3 of them.
Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai,India
12th Dec 2019.