Extras

• A County Championship match at Blackpool in 2006 was twice interrupted by water bombs catapulted on to the field from outside the ground. Batting against Warwickshire, Lancashire opener Iain Sutcliffe (159) had his innings upset by the first of the water bombs on the opening day, while a second was launched onto the pitch two days later. The club groundsman used a bar towel to dry the pitch, with the miscreants believed to be local teenagers.
• A six off the bat of Paul Collingwood in a one-day international in 2010 knocked over the wheelchair of a disabled patron at Chester-le-Street. All smiles after his mishap, he was helped back into his chair and resumed watching the match, between England and Pakistan.
• Sam Loxton, who lived to the age of 90, suffered a double tragedy in 2000 when his wife Jo drowned in the pool at their Gold Coast home on the same day that his son Michael was taken by a shark in Fiji. Loxton was one of Don Bradman’s “Invincibles” and appeared in 12 Tests between 1948 and 1951.
• Thirumalai Sekhar was a medium-pacer from Chennai who appeared in two Tests for India without scoring a run or taking a wicket or a catch. Sekhar played twice against Pakistan in 1982/83, returning figures of 0-80 on his debut at Lahore and 0-43 at Karachi.
• England’s 12th man came a cropper at Lord’s in 2011 during a match that celebrated the game’s 2,000th Test. Middlesex’s Tom Hampton was left a little worse for wear after tripping over a tin of white paint near the pitch during some fielding practice. Covered in paint from head to toe, he managed to get cleaned up just in time for the start of play in the match, the first Test between England and India.
• As Afghanistan prepared for their first one-day international against a Test-playing nation in 2011/12, the team received a message of support from the Taliban. The match – won by Pakistan at Sharjah – was the first ODI between an affiliate member of the ICC and a full member.
• An unusual commemorative cricket match was staged in 2012 to pay tribute to a navy officer who had led Britain’s first expedition to the South Pole 100 years before. The mission, which took place between 1910 and 1912, resulted in the death of Robert Falcon Scott and all of his crew. Played in temperatures of -35 degrees Celsius, a team of Britons beat a Rest of the World side at the South Pole in a game organised by Neil Laughton, a Special Air Service officer: “I thought it was quintessentially British, I wanted to do something that does not happen down here very often, if at all. Obviously it was very cold and difficult with all the bulky clothing to bat and bowl, but we managed it fine.”
• In 2012, Pakistan’s Abdur Rehman appeared in a one-day international and in a first-class match on different continents on the same day. After taking two wickets against Australia at Sharjah in a one-day international that finished in the early hours of the morning, Rehman boarded a plane and turned out for Somerset. Barely 12 hours after completing the ODI, Rehman took 3-30 on the opening day of the County Championship match against Sussex at Hove.

  In 1988, England’s Graham Gooch made history by appearing on the field in two first-class matches on the same day. After completing a Test victory over Sri Lanka at Lord’s on 30 August, he then played for Essex against Surrey in a County Championship match six miles away at The Oval.

• When the USA lined up for the 2011 Women’s World Cup qualifying 50-over tournament, two of their players were aged in their 50s. Captained by 42-year-old Test player Doris Francis, the squad included Grace Chadderton-Richards, 54, and Joan Alexander-Serrano, 50.
• Soon after taking out the ICC Spirit of Cricket award in 2011, India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni was made an honorary lieutenant-colonel in a voluntary division of the country’s armed forces. The previous month, Dhoni (pictured) had been awarded an honorary doctor of letters from De Montfort University in Leicester.
• A Mumbai lawyer launched a court case against the CIA in 2010, claiming the American intelligence agency was behind a plot to embarrass the Indian cricket team. Prabhakar Pradhan alleged in the High Court that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for “tiring out” the country’s players and causing shame to the national team. He also claimed that students were unable to concentrate on schoolwork because of a busy international cricket calendar. Mr Pradhan said: “It is a CIA mischief. It wants to humiliate our players in international matches. It is for the citizens to play or see matches. When I was a student, I never watched matches when there were exams.” The case was struck down by the presiding judge Anil Dave, who said: “It is not necessary. We are rejecting it.”
  

  India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni

  

  Former South African Test batsman Neil McKenzie with his Maasai Warrior team-mates at Cape Town in 2012

• One of the most colourful and unusual cricket teams emerged in the 2000s with tribesmen from the Maasai clan in Kenya swapping their spears for cricket bats. The Maasai Cricket Warriors were formed to foster sport amongst the clan’s youth and to target social problems in its community. They played their first official match against the Dol Dol Boys Secondary School in 2009, gaining a 125-run victory in a 40-over game.

  In 2012, the Maasai Warriors were invited to take part in the Last Man Stands World Championships in South Africa, a Twenty20 competition made up of amateur teams from around the world. Famed for playing their cricket in traditional tribal attire of sandals, beads and a ‘shuka’ wrap, the team’s trainer, former Kenya captain Steve Tikolo, insisted they turn up for matches in whites. He said: “Cricket has its own rules that have to be followed. I appreciate they want to sell the image of Kenya, but they must play in the normal cricket uniform and not their traditional attire.”

  They ended up playing in their garb, and took part in four matches in the competition staged in Cape Town. After three consecutive losses, they peaked in their fourth encounter after acquiring the services of Neil McKenzie. The former South African batsman – who also played in their traditional clothing – hit 34 off 17 balls, while Papai Simon Ole Mamai struck a maiden Twenty20 fifty for the Maasai Warriors in a memorable tie.

• Former Australian fast bowler Max Walker is an avid collector of fountain pens. Regarded as one of the country’s top-selling authors, Walker still writes books with a pen: “It’s hard to define what it is about writing that I love. To me, it’s just the feel of an extension of your fingers through the pen on the paper. It’s the smell of the ink. I’ve always loved to see a graphic representation of a thought.”
• Sri Lankan fast bowler Chaminda Vaas was fined a day’s allowance by team management after a masseur was discovered in his hotel room during the 2001/02 Sharjah Cup. On the eve of the final, in which Sri Lanka was flogged by Pakistan, Vaas was caught with a male masseur in his room after a 10pm curfew imposed by team officials.
• On the eve of the 1999 World Cup final against Australia, Pakistani spinner Saqlain Mushtaq hid his wife in a hotel cupboard. With wives and other family members banned towards the end of the tournament, Saqlain had to take swift action when a team official knocked on his door.
• A group of daring, but inebriated, Sydneysiders made news around the world in 2012 after playing a game of nude cricket in the hallway of a hostel in Darwin. Sent to bed after being caught on the facility’s cameras, the group lost their bond after checking out.

  “They were really good about it, they knew they were being punished for what they had been doing. It is not that extreme. It is quite a traditional Australian male thing, playing cricket naked.”

  hostel employee Joe Manning

• Batting against South Africa at Johannesburg in 2011/12, Usman Khawaja brought up his maiden half-century in Test match cricket. The Pakistan-born Australian was dismissed by the South African spinner Imran Tahir, who was also born in Pakistan. A similar type of dismissal took place in 1993 when Brendon Julian – born in New Zealand and playing for Australia – took the wicket of Andrew Caddick – born in New Zealand and representing England – in the third Ashes Test in Nottingham. Another truly ‘international’ dismissal came about in a Test at Adelaide in 1910/11 as Sammy Carter – born in England but playing for Australia – fell to the bowling of Reggie Schwarz, who was also born in England, and playing for South Africa.
• Bangladesh’s Enamul Haque jnr appeared in ten one-day internationals over a five-year period, all against the same opposition. After three games against Zimbabwe in Bangladesh in 2004/05, he played the remaining seven against the Zimbabweans in the calendar year of 2009.
• Of the final 22 one-day internationals played by Aaqib Javed, 20 came against the same country. After a run of 12 ODIs against India that began in 1997, the Pakistani quick then played against Bangladesh. His next eight games were all against India, with his final ODI against Zimbabwe in 1998/99.
• Dutch batsman Jelte Schoonheim had one of the shortest, and unluckiest, international careers on record with his only match abandoned without a ball bowled. On his debut for the Netherlands – a Twenty20 international against Ireland in Belfast in 2008 – the captains made the toss but the rains came and the match was called off. He was never selected for his country again.
• In the same week that an offer to play in the 2011 World Cup was withdrawn, a West Australian batsman was found guilty of assaulting a player during a club match in Perth. Michael Swart, who later played one-day internationals and first-class cricket for the Netherlands, was involved in a physical clash with Essex import Billy Godleman in a Perth grade match in 2010/11. Although a three-match ban was overturned, suffered the ignominy of being asked to play for the Netherlands in the World Cup, only to have the invitation withdrawn.
• In recognition of becoming the first South African to score a Test match triple-century, Hashim Amla was made a member of the Beard Liberation Front. The group – whose members include Rolf Harris and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant – noted that Amla’s unbeaten 311 at The Oval in 2012 was “ … an outstanding example of how a beard can add weight to a sporting performance and make a significant positive impact in the public eye.”
• While England was victorious over Australia in the 2009 Blind Ashes series, concerns were raised about the degree of disability of one of their top players. A Sydney magistrate, Christine Haskett, whose nephew Mark Haskett was in the Australian team, suggested that Nathan Foy might have had an unfair advantage. But Foy was unperturbed by the accusation, saying: “I have exceptional hearing which allows me to hear the ball bearings inside the ball even in the air sometimes. Coupled with quick reactions and an amazing skill to know where I am in the outfield, I have become an accomplished fielder without sight.”
• The 100th cricket ground to stage a Test was Sophia Gardens in Cardiff during the 2009 Ashes series. The 101st and 102nd grounds both began operations – the following year – on the same day, a first in Test match cricket. Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and the Dubai Sports City Stadium both hosted their first day of Test cricket on 12 November 2010.
• When the Australian government’s chief climate change advisor presented a report on the science at a Canberra function in 2011 he was introduced by the MC as the only man to have hit a six on to the roof of Beijing’s famous Temple of Heaven. Professor Ross Garnaut is a former Australian ambassador to China, and was captain of the embassy’s cricket team.
• First-class cricket was played in England in March for the first time in 2012, with a number of university matches beginning on the final day of the month. The Australian-born Sam Robson made history by hitting 117 for Middlesex against Durham MCCU at Northwood, the earliest first-class hundred scored in the UK. Cardiff MCCU wicketkeeper Zachary Elkin (131) also raised his bat by scoring 127 by stumps on the first day of his first-class debut, against Somerset at Taunton, the earliest hundred against a first-class county.

  At Fenner’s, three batsmen hit March centuries as Essex bludgeoned Cambridge MCCU to the tune of 506/6 declared. Greg Smith – batting at number six – scored 160, while numbers seven and eight – James Foster (114*) and Graham Napier (100*) – also reached three figures. Surrey’s Rory Burns (101*) and Glamorgan’s new wicketkeeping captain Mark Wallace (122*) also scored centuries on the same day, for a grand total of seven centurions in the month.

• When Pakistan’s Younis Khan fell to Sri Lanka’s Thisara Perera in the fourth one-day international at Colombo in 2012, he became the first batsman to feature in a hat-trick in all three forms of international cricket. He was part of an Irfan Pathan Test match hat-trick at Karachi in 2005/06 and was one of the dismissed in a Tim Southee hat-trick in a Twenty20 international at Auckland in 2010/11.
• Two years after he died in 2009, the wife of a former one-day international cricketer claimed that he had faked his own death. Asim Butt, a left-arm quick who appeared in five World Cup games for Scotland, reportedly died in his sleep while in Lahore. His estranged wife, Tara, went public in 2011 saying no record of his death could be found, and that he may have faked his death for financial gain or to assume a new identity. She said: “I tried to get a death certificate so I could show I was a widow and not divorced. My children were in private school and I needed to prove I was a widow to pay reduced fees. I hired a lawyer but he could not get a death certificate from Pakistan. The authorities say no-one with that date of birth and name had passed away. I’ve never had a penny from Asim’s estate.”

  On his one-day international debut – against Australia at Worcester in the 1999 World Cup – Butt opened the bowling and snared the prized wicket of Adam Gilchrist for six. He appeared in 29 first-class matches, with a best return of 5-47.

• Peter Siddle, who famously took a Test hat-trick on his 26th birthday, bowled to a fellow birthday boy in the second Australia–South Africa Test at Adelaide in 2012/13. Siddle celebrated his 28th birthday by knocking over Alviro Petersen on his 32nd birthday. Another birthday dismissal took place during the West Indies v India Test at Port-of-Spain in 1961/62. Jamaica’s Easton McMorris – born on 4 April 1935 – was dismissed in the first innings by Bapu Nadkarni, born on the same date in 1933.
• Two of the players in the first-ever Test match were born on the same day in the same city. When Australia lined up against England at the MCG in 1876/77, two of the historic XI – Nat Thompson and Ned Gregory – were born in Sydney on 29 May 1839. Thompson became the first batsman to be dismissed in Test cricket, while Gregory became the first batsman to be dismissed for a Test match duck.

  The Indian-born Victorian batsman Bransby Cooper made his Test debut in the same match, celebrating Test cricket’s birth and his birthday. Born on 15 March 1844, Cooper scored 15 on the first day of the Test, 15 March 1877.

  

  A souvenir from the first Test – Australia versus England at Melbourne in 1876/77

• In 1956, a ten-year old boy named Richard Stokes attended the fourth Test against Australia, the match in which Jim Laker made history with the ball. The son of a club cricketer, Richard watched on as Laker took 10-53 in Australia’s innings, which, at the time, was a unique feat in Test match cricket.

  Three decades later, Stokes was on a business trip to New Delhi and to mark his birthday went along to the cricket, the second Test between India and Pakistan in 1998/99. Remarkably, he witnessed the second instance of a bowler claiming all ten in an innings, with Anil Kumble taking 10-74. Stokes said: “I made it to the ground after lunch and Pakistan were very comfortable. Immediately, Kumble got two in an over and I told a friend of mine that I have brought luck to Kumble and India. When he had taken six wickets, I told him about my having watched Laker’s feat, and he just said that history was about to be repeated. I merely laughed.”

• In 2012, Gurinder Sandhu became the first male cricketer of Indian origin to play for Australia. The then-19-year-old medium-fast bowler from New South Wales took 2-32 on his debut, against England in the Under-19 World Cup. He said: “I thought there might have been a couple before me, but obviously not. I guess being the first Indian, some other Indian kids might look up to me, so I’ll just hopefully do the best I can.”

  In 2001, the Pune-born Lisa Sthalekar had become the first Indian, male or female, to represent Australia when she made her debut in a one-day international against England.

• Jiang Shuyao made a name for himself in 2012 when he became the first cricketer from mainland China to play in an overseas cricket league. Hailing from Shenyang in the north-east of China, Jiang played for the Cleethorpes club in England’s Lincolnshire League. Jiang said: “I like training for one or two hours here. In China we train for four hours, have some rice and then train for another four. And here you can say ‘hello’ to another player in training. If you do that in China you must run ten laps of the pitch.”

  In 2008/09, Jiang made his debut for the Chinese national team, but endured a wretched initiation with a score of one and two ducks in his first three matches in the Asian Cricket Council Trophy.

• Shahid Afridi was involved in a scuffle with members of the public at Karachi’s international airport in 2012 with the Pakistan all-rounder throwing a few punches. Flying in from Dhaka where Pakistan had won the Asia Cup, Afridi was mobbed by fans and had to be restrained by his brother. Afridi said: “I know what I did was wrong. I should have controlled myself, but I couldn’t take it when my daughter was pushed to the ground.”
• India’s Virat Kohli was fined half of his match fee during the second Test against Australia in 2011/12 following an incident with spectators on a day that the crowd was reportedly on its best behaviour. Kohli was charged after an indecent hand gesture on the second day and said: “I agree cricketers don’t have to retaliate … the crowd says the worst things about your mother and sister, the worst I’ve heard.”

  According to cricket authorities, since records began, the second day of the SCG match was the first time not a single spectator had been evicted for unruly behaviour during a Test in Australia.

• A first-class match at Scarborough in 2009 began in bizarre circumstances with proceedings from a funeral beamed around the ground during the opening day’s play. The club’s public address system inadvertently picked up coverage of a nearby funeral with a number of readings broadcast during the morning session of the Yorkshire–Nottinghamshire match.
• When former Australian Test batsman Marcus North made his first-class debut for Glamorgan in 2012, he became the first player to appear for six different English counties. The West Australian had previously played first-class cricket for Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire.

  In North’s second first-class appearance for Glamorgan – at Southampton – three other players in the same match had also played for Western Australia. North played alongside Jim Allenby – who appeared in a Twenty20 match for WA in 2006/07 – while Hampshire’s XI contained Simon Katich and Zimbabwe’s Sean Ervine, who had also played first-class cricket for the West.

• England’s wet weather upset a number of fixtures around the country in 2012, with a 50-over match needing 12 days to be completed. A Worsley Cup match at Blackburn scheduled for 9 June finally came to a conclusion more than a month later on 12 July. Playing for East Lancashire (204/6), South African Ockert Erasmus took a hat-trick and 5-21 in an 11-run victory over Enfield (193) in a game played on two grounds – Alexandra Meadows and Dill Hall Lane.
• A Melbourne radio announcer was put in his place by the Australian women’s cricket team in 2008 after boasting on air that he could hit a century against them. Keen to prove him wrong, a number of the Australian women’s side, including Lisa Sthalekar and Emma Sampson, met up with Nova’s Ed Kavalee at a suburban park in Melbourne for a showdown. Kavalee batted against a team comprising four national players, six listeners and a colleague. After copping a number of balls on various parts of his body, he conceded he was wrong after being dismissed for just 34. Kavalee admitted: “I said repeatedly the girls couldn’t throw or bat or field and I could score 100 runs against the Australian women’s cricket team. I would now like to retract that statement.”
• A Kerry O’Keeffe impersonator on Twitter proved to be a huge hit in 2011, sucking in a little under 2,500 followers in just a day. The fake site attracted some big names, such as fellow radio commentator Jonathan Agnew and Australian spinner Michael Beer.

  The ABC radio commentator officially got on board the following year, and had some 6,000 followers on the first day, tweeting: “No trolls.”

  “I think Glenn [McGrath] wasted his 25 cents there. How much does a tweet cost?”

  Channel Nine’s Mark Taylor exposing a lack of knowledge about Twitter

  “I am just too boring. I can’t think of anything interesting to say. It wouldn’t be useful to me.”

  Andrew Strauss in 2012, revealing his reluctance to join Twitter

• Champion Russian chess player Peter Svidler is a big cricket fan who borrowed the ‘Tendulkar’ sobriquet as his nickname in an online chess tournament. The chess grandmaster used the Indian batsman’s name on the ICC – Internet Chess Club – website. He said: “I chose ‘Tendulkar’ because I meant it as some innocent fun. The intention was to create an illusion. Cricket is not a hobby, it is a full-time occupation. I keep stats, I’m a madman.”
• When India and Pakistan took to the field for a match at Bangalore in 2012, they combined for the first-ever Twenty20 international played on Christmas Day. Previously, there had been three Christmas one-day internationals – India versus Bangladesh at Chandigarh in 1999, Pakistan against Zimbabwe at Rawalpindi in 1993 and India versus Sri Lanka at Indore in 1997.

  The first first-class match to include play on Christmas Day took place in New Zealand in 1884 in the game between Hawkes Bay and Wellington in Napier. The record for the highest last-wicket stand in first-class cricket was set on Christmas Day in 1928, when the New South Wales pair of Alan Kippax and Hal Hooker added 307 against Victoria in a Sheffield Shield match in Melbourne.

  The first Test to include play on 25 December was in 1951 when Australia hosted the West Indies at Adelaide. The last Test played at Christmas – Pakistan versus India at Karachi in 1982 – featured a five-wicket haul on the day from Imran Khan (8-60).

  
• During Australia’s innings loss at the hands of India at Hyderabad in 2012/13, Dave Warner hit a second-innings six which was caught by a former Test cricketer in the stands. Merv Hughes, who was leading a tour group, took 23 catches for Australia in his 53 Tests.
• Opening the batting against South Africa at Durban in 2012/13, Pakistan’s Mohammad Hafeez became the first batsman in the history of one-day internationals to be dismissed for a duck obstructing the field. Only the fourth batsman to be dismissed in such fashion in a ODI, fellow Pakistan opener Rameez Raja was the first from his country to go this way, out for a heart-breaking 99 against England at Karachi in 1987/88.