• After securing his 50th first-class wicket of the season in 2014, Worcestershire’s Jack Shantry then brought up a maiden first-class century in the same match against Surrey at New Road. With bowling figures of 6-87 and 4-44 and an unbeaten 101 in the second innings, Shantry became the first player to take ten wickets and score a century at No. 9 or lower in the same first-class match.
• Yorkshire’s George Macaulay celebrated the first day of 1923 and the first day of his Test career by dismissing South African opener George Hearne for a duck with his first ball in Test match cricket. Macaulay (1*) later made the winning run in England’s one-wicket victory in the match at Cape Town.
• India’s Irfan Pathan achieved a unique Test match double during 2005/06 by scoring a half-century as an opening batsman and taking a hat-trick as an opening bowler. After making a duck in the first innings of the Delhi Test match against Sri Lanka, Pathan was promoted to open the second with Gautam Gambhir and scored 93, hitting ten fours and two sixes. The following month, and playing against Pakistan at Karachi, Pathan then became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in the opening over of a Test match.
• After the humiliation of seven consecutive Test match ducks against Australia and nine scoreless efforts in 11 innings, India’s Ajit Agarkar had the last laugh by topping the batting averages in the 2004/05 series. Agarkar came out on top with a 59.00-run average, after scores of 15 and 44 not out in his one appearance at Nagpur. He was not so lucky with the ball, however, languishing at the bottom of the list with an average of 169.00.
• After taking a career-best eight wickets at St Vincent in 2013/14, Campuses and Colleges off-spinner Ryan Austin became just the fifth batsman to be timed out in first-class cricket. Opening the bowling against Windward Islands, Austin took 8-64 – and 11 wickets for the match – but when it came his time to bat in the second innings, Ryan failed to make it to the crease in time and was given out.
• On top of scoring two fifties at Lord’s in 1952, India’s Vinoo Mankad also claimed five wickets in an innings. Despite ending up on the losing side, the Indian opener scored 72 and 184 and, with the ball, took 5-196 in England’s first-innings total of 537. He remains the only player to achieve the all-round feat of a century, a fifty and five wickets in an innings in the same Test at the home of cricket.
• Bangladesh fast bowler Nazmul Hossain once took Test wickets with consecutive deliveries, but seven years apart. After dismissing India’s No. 11 Harbhajan Singh with the final ball he bowled on his Test debut in 2004/05, he then claimed a wicket with his first ball in his comeback Test, against Pakistan in Dhaka in 2011/12. And following a first-ball duck in his first Test innings as a just-turned 17-year-old, Hossain copped another on his return. Batting at No. 11 against India at Chittagong in 2004/05, he was run out for a duck, repeating the feat in his second Test, in 2011/12: “If I play my third Test after seven years then my career’s over.”
In the same innings of the Dhaka Test, Hossain’s team-mate Shakib Al Hasan was run out for 144, and by taking 6-82 became the first Bangladeshi to achieve the all-round feat in the same Test.
• On the same day that he scooped up a handy haul of four wickets for 13, South Africa’s Jacques Kallis also scored one of Test cricket’s fastest fifties. His winning double came on the opening day of the first Test against Zimbabwe at Cape Town in 2004/05, which saw the tourists disintegrate for 54. Kallis scored as many runs as Zimbabwe did on his own, his 54 including three fours and five sixes, three coming successively off the bowling of Graeme Cremer. He reached his half-century in 36 minutes off just 24 balls on the way to becoming the first batsman to aggregate 1,000 Test runs at the Newlands ground.
• Pakistan’s Abdul Razzaq played a blinder with both bat and ball in a Twenty20 international against New Zealand in 2010/11, hitting an unbeaten 34 off 11 balls with a strike rate of 309.09. After being dropped by Nathan McCullum in the penultimate over, his next two scoring shots were sixes, both of which were caught in the stands at the AMI Stadium in Christchurch. He then faced four balls of the final over, hitting another six and three fours.
Back on the field, Razzaq then opened the bowling and had New Zealand in tatters at 11/5, the lowest score in a Twenty20 international at five wickets down. New Zealand’s first four batsmen made ducks, with Razzaq in the thick of it, at one stage, brandishing figures of 3-3. The previous – and first – occasion that an international Twenty20 innings had begun with four ducks was at Durban in 2007/08 when New Zealand had the upper hand over Kenya.
• During the 1983/84 Christchurch Test against England, Richard Hadlee achieved a unique double of a fifty and a five-wicket haul. With 99 in New Zealand’s first innings and 5-28 in England’s follow-on, Hadlee became the first, and to date only, player to achieve the only 50 and the only five-for in a single Test.
• Appearing in his second List A cricket match, the Netherlands’ Edgar Schiferli scored an unbeaten 89 and took four wickets for 35. In the ICC Six Nations Challenge match against Canada at Windhoek in 2001/02, Schiferli made history with the bat, making the highest-ever score by a No. 10 in List A cricket.
• In an under-19 Test against England in 2000/01, India’s Vidyut Sivara-makrishnan became the first bowler to take eight wickets in an innings on his debut. The slow left-armer took 4-84 and a match-winning 8-38 in the first Youth Test at Mumbai, the first instance of 12 wickets by a debutant. Two months later, he entered the record books again, but this time with the bat – his innings of 115 for Tamil Nadu against Delhi at Chennai was the first century by a No. 11 in the Ranji Trophy.
• Pakistan’s Rana Naved-ul-Hasan had a scorcher of a match for Sussex at Lord’s in 2005, scoring a century in under a hundred balls and dismissing four Middlesex batsmen for a duck in a single over. In Sussex’s innings of 522/9 – scored on the opening day – Naved hit 139 batting at No. 8 with 11 fours and four sixes, reaching his century off 94 balls in 125 minutes. Middlesex (128 and 162) then fell to pieces, losing by an innings and 232 runs, for its heaviest defeat at Lord’s since 1946, Naved taking 3-42 and 4-54. The second innings featured six consecutive ducks, with Naved responsible for four in one over (W, W, 0, W, 0, W).
• After scoring a pair of centuries in a County Championship match for Yorkshire in 2007, Pakistan’s Younis Khan then produced his best bowling figures in first-class cricket. With the bat, he scored 106 and 202 not out in the match against Hampshire at Southampton and then came perilously close to bowling his side to victory with a career-best 4-52.
• Gloucestershire’s Will Gidman triumphed with both bat and ball in 2011, becoming the first England-born player to secure the double of 1,000 runs and 50 wickets in his debut season of County Championship cricket. The seventh overall to achieve the feat, he reached the milestone in a record 16 matches, ending the season with 1,006 runs and 51 wickets. Topping both the batting and bowling averages for his county, his highest score was 116 not out, while his best with the ball was 6-92.
• In a Ryobi One-Day Cup match at Burnie in 2012/13, Tasmania’s seven and eight both scored fifties in a century partnership and then took four wickets each. James Faulkner won the man-of-the-match award for his double of 66 and 4-32 while Evan Gulbis scored an unbeaten 57 and took 4-36 in an 85-run win over Western Australia.
• Just days after hitting the winning run in a one-day international, Mick Lewis found himself on the losing side with 100 runs beside his name. Batting against South Africa at Durban in 2005/06, Lewis scored four not out – the only runs of his seven–match career – becoming the first Australian No. 11 to hit the winning run in a one-day international. In his next match – his final one – he became the first Australian to concede 100 runs in a one-day international, going for 113 off his ten overs in a high-scoring match at Johannesburg which saw South Africa successfully chase a victory target of 435.
• After knocking up a score of 287 in a limited-over club match in India in 2013/14, Vivek Yadav then bowled his side to victory with figures of 7-1. Playing against Saint Angel, Yadav struck 49 fours and five sixes, as Aravali galloped to a 50-over total of 512/8.
• During Bangladesh’s domination over Zimbabwe at Khulna in 2014/15, Shakib Al Hasan became the first spinner to score a century and take ten wickets in the same Test. With 137 in the first innings and two five-wicket hauls, Shakib became the third player to achieve the all-round double and the first since Imran Khan in 1982/83.
Shakib then became just the second player to achieve the double of 250 runs and 15 wickets from three or fewer Tests of a series. With 251 runs and 18 wickets, he joined Mitchell Johnson, who had 255 runs and 16 wickets against South Africa in 2008/09.
In the one-day international series that followed the Tests, Shakib shone again with 101 and 4-41 in the first match at Chittagong. In doing so, he became the first player to achieve the double of a century and a five-for in a Test and a century and a four-for in a one-day international. In 2015, Shakib was crowned the top all-rounder in the ICC’s Test, one-day international and Twenty20 ratings, the first player to be top of the pops across all three formats simultaneously.
• Foffie Williams celebrated the West Indies’ return to Test match cricket after the Second World War by recording career-best figures with both bat and ball. In the second innings of the first Test against England at Bridgetown in 1947/48, Williams smacked a thunderous 72 with the bat, including six, six, four and four off the first four balls he faced from Jim Laker, and another two fours off the next deliveries from Jack Ikin, a record-breaking start to a Test innings. His fifty took just 30 minutes, one of the fastest on record in the game. A fast-medium bowler, Williams returned the figures of 11-8-3-1 in his first spell in the match, finishing the innings with 3-51 off 33 overs, including 15 maidens.
• India’s Yuvraj Singh pulled off one of the great doubles in Twenty20 cricket on his 28th birthday. After taking three wickets against Sri Lanka at Mohali in 2009/10, he then hit an unbeaten 60 off 25 balls, clobbering five sixes: “This is my best birthday till now.”
• New Zealand’s John Reid, an all-rounder who appeared in 58 Tests between 1949 and 1965, is the only cricketer to attain the Test treble of 20 wickets, a century and a stumping. While captaining the Kiwis in the fourth Test against England at Manchester in 1958, Reid claimed a wicket and a stumping in the same innings.
Reid finished his career with a batting average of 33.28 and a bowling average of 33.35, the smallest difference – 0.07 – by any player in Test match cricket.
• Mitchell Johnson achieved an unusual double at Hamilton in 2009/10, becoming the first Australian fast bowler to gain a ten-wicket haul and a pair in the same Test. With the ball, he took 4-59 and 6-73 and was dismissed for a duck in each innings, both times by New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori.
• The first Bangladeshi to take a hat-trick in a Test match set an unusual record with the bat during the 2003 World Cup. In a match against Sri Lanka at Pietermaritzburg, Chaminda Vaas had the Bangladeshis reeling at four wickets down for five with Alok Kapali facing the sixth ball of the first over. He remains the only No. 6 batsman to face a delivery in the opening over of a one-day international.
• Paul Collingwood celebrated his first-class debut by taking a wicket with his first delivery and scoring more than 100 runs. Representing Durham, Collingwood accounted for former Test player David Capel with his first ball, and with the bat, topped the 100-run mark (91 and 16) in the match against Northamptonshire at Chester-le-Street in 1996.
• After conceding a massive 300 runs with the ball in a Ranji Trophy semi-final in 1945/46, B.K. Garudachar came good with the bat, scoring a maiden first-class century. The Mysore captain took 4-301 at Indore when Holkar made a record 912/8 declared, an innings that contained six individual centuries. With 18 in his side’s response of 190, Garudachar then hit 164 following-on, beating his previous best first-class score of 94.
• At Sharjah in 2013/14, Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath became the first player to collect a king pair and concede 100 runs in an innings in the same Test. Playing against Pakistan in the third Test of the series, Herath was out first ball twice and gave away 100 runs in both innings – 5-125 and 0-100. Two others had previously bagged a pair and leaked 100 runs in each innings of a Test – the West Indies’ Alf Valentine (8-104 and 3-100) – on his Test debut – against England at Manchester in 1950 and England’s Derek Underwood (7-113 and 4-102) at Adelaide in 1974/75.
• Appearing in his first match back home after the 1948 Invincibles tour, wicketkeeper Don Tallon starred with the bat and ball. Playing against a Queensland Country XI at Bundaberg in the summer of 1948/49, Tallon ditched his gloves and bowling leg-spin, picked up 10-30 and then scored a century (106*).
• Warwickshire all-rounder Chris Woakes put in one of the best match-performances of all time in English first-class cricket in 2011, but ended up on the losing side. Batting at No. 8 against Hampshire at Birmingham, Woakes top-scored in each innings with 64 and 23 not out and picked up ten wickets (7-20 and 3-103) only to see Hampshire triumph by 209 runs. Chasing 308 to win, Warwickshire were shot down for 98, with five of the top six making ducks within 33 balls.
• Picked as a replacement for an unfit Ray Lindwall in the summer of 1946/47, Victorian all-rounder Fred Freer marked his only Test match for Australia by taking a wicket in his first over and, batting at No. 9, scoring an unbeaten 28 in his only innings. Freer claimed the wicket of England opener Cyril Washbrook for one with his fourth delivery in the second Test at Sydney, and finished the game with 3-74 as Australia cruised to an innings-and-33-run victory. A pace bowler, Freer claimed a total of 104 wickets at first-class level and made three centuries, all of which were scored on a Commonwealth tour of India in 1949/50.
• After scoring a near run-a-ball fifty in a one-day international against Zimbabwe at Harare in 2004, Australia’s Darren Lehmann then put on a show with the ball. The sixth bowler used, Lehmann returned figures of 4-7, the cheapest four-wicket bowling performance by an Australian in one-day international cricket.
• During the three-match Test series against India in 1992/93, Graeme Hick was the only England batsman to score 300 runs, topping both the batting and bowling averages. He also took the most wickets and most catches. Although he ended up on the losing side, Hick scored 315 runs at 52.50, took eight wickets at 25.25 and held on to five catches.
• Australia’s Arthur Richardson averaged 31.00 with both bat and ball in the 1924/25 Ashes. He also had a batting average of 31.00 in the follow-up series, in 1926, concluding his nine-match Test career with an average of 31.00.
• Appearing in just his fourth first-class match, E.M. Grace achieved both his maiden century and maiden haul of five wickets in an innings. Playing for the MCC, Grace carried his bat for 192 and with the ball claimed 15 wickets, including ten (10-69) in the second innings of the match, against the Gentlemen of Kent at Canterbury in 1862.
• England’s David Steele only appeared in eight Tests, topping the batting and bowling averages in his first series. From three Tests against Australia in 1975, he scored 365 runs at 60.83 and took two wickets at 10.50. The next debutant to achieve the all-round feat was Michael Clarke in 2004/05. In four Tests against India, Clarke hit 400 runs at 57.14, and picked up six wickets at 2.16.
• On his Test debut for India, at the Adelaide Oval in 1967/68, all-rounder Abid Ali took 6-55 and, batting at No. 7, achieved identical scores of 33 in each innings. He was opening the batting two Tests later, scoring 78 and 81 in the final match at Sydney. His second-innings effort at the SCG and his six-wicket haul at Adelaide proved to be his best performances with both bat and ball in his 29-match Test career.
• The Pakistan-born Frasat Ali made history in 1975 by becoming the first player to open both the batting and bowling in a one-day international, doing so on his debut. Frasat appeared in three ODIs for East Africa in the 1975 World Cup.
• After scoring an unbeaten century against Bangladesh at Potchefstroom in 2002/03, South Africa’s Jacques Kallis took five wickets in the space of just 12 balls to consign Bangladesh to an innings defeat. On a pitch described as “flatter than the highway running to Johannesburg”, Kallis picked up 5-21 off 4.3 overs.
• South African Martin van Jaarsveld put on a one-man show during a County Championship match in 2008 with two unbeaten centuries and a five-wicket haul in the only innings he bowled. Representing Kent in a match against Surrey at The Oval, van Jaarsveld secured his first five-for (5-33) in a first-class innings and his third instance of twin hundreds (114* and 115*). Van Jaarsveld became the first Kent player to achieve the feat of two centuries and five wickets in an innings in the same match, and just the 12th in all first-class cricket: “I’m completely humbled. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have a match like this.”
The only player to have secured two centuries (111 and 117*) and two lots of five wickets (6-70 and 5-45) in the same first-class match is Yorkshire’s George Hirst, against Somerset at Bath in 1906.
• Nathan Lyon celebrated the return of the Ashes urn in 2013/14 after taking a wicket in every innings in which he bowled while remaining unbeaten in the six innings in which he batted. After reaching the milestone of 100 wickets during the MCG Test, the off-spinning Lyon finished the series with 19 wickets at 29.36 and 60 runs batting at No. 11.
• Appearing in his fifth Test match, Australia’s Mitchell Starc achieved his maiden five-wicket haul and maiden fifty in first-class cricket. Although Australia was thumped by South Africa in the match, at Perth in 2012/13, Starc took 6-154 and then top-scored for Australia in the fourth innings with an unbeaten 68 batting at No. 10.
• Of the four batsmen who struck a hundred in the West Indies-Australia Test at Bridgetown in 1955, two also went for 100 runs in an innings with the ball. A unique occurrence in Test match cricket, Australia’s Keith Miller scored 137 in the first innings and then took 2-113, while Denis Atkinson returned a double of 219 and 2-108. Miller repeated the feat in the following Test at Kingston, with 109 and 6-107.
• Jack Massie, the son of Australian Test captain Hugh Massie, appeared in 16 first-class matches for New South Wales taking 99 wickets. With the bat, the fast bowler scored 199 runs.
• After his first three Tests for Sri Lanka, Nuwan Pradeep had a world-record bowling average of 345.00 and a batting average of 0.50. After making his Test debut at Abu Dhabi in 2011/12, the fast-bowling Pradeep put up bowling figures of 0-107, 0-3, 0-28, 1-56, 0-103 and 0-48. With the bat, he had scores of 1, 0, 0 and 1.
• In a comeback match for Pakistan in 2013, Shahid Afridi became the first player to score a 50 and take seven wickets in a one-day international. After smashing 76 against the West Indies at Providence, Afridi then took a match-winning haul of 7-12. He also became the first player to reach the ODI career double of 7,000 runs and 350 wickets.
The only other player to previously achieve the 70 run–seven wicket double in a List A match is Peter Sainsbury (76 and 7-30), for Hampshire against Norfolk at Southampton in 1965.
• Following his dumping from the Australian Test side in 2010, Nathan Hauritz posted his best figures with both bat and ball in first-class cricket. After bowling New South Wales to victory with 5-39 at Perth in the 2010/11 Sheffield Shield, he then scored his maiden hundred in the following match at the SCG. His 146 against South Australia was promptly followed with another ton in his next innings – an unbeaten 110 against Queensland at Blacktown.
• England’s Jim Smith, who once famously scored a 14-minute fifty in a first-class match, opened the batting and bowling on his Test debut. He opened the bowling with Ken Farnes in both innings of the first Test against the West Indies at Bridgetown in 1934/35, with the pair opening the batting in their second innings. West Indies debutant Leslie Hylton – who, two decades later, became the only Test cricketer to be executed – also opened both the batting and bowling during the match.
• Before a record-breaking four-wicket haul at Harare in 2013, Zimbabwe’s Graeme Cremer scored a pair of scores in the 40s. Cremer hit 42 and 43 batting at number eight against Bangladesh, then took 4-4, the cheapest four-wicket haul in the history of Test match cricket.
• In the same match that he scored a maiden first-class century, Bloomfield’s Suraj Randiv took nine wickets in an innings. After scoring 112 at No. 3 against the Sri Lanka Army Sports Club at Colombo in 2009/10, Randiv then took a match-winning 9-109 and 13 wickets for the match and was at the crease with an unbeaten 48 in the second innings when Bloomfield claimed victory.
• In 2011/12, West Indies fast bowler Ravi Rampaul became the first No. 10 batsman to score a half-century in the first innings of a one-day international. With a knock of 86 not out against India at Visakhapatnam, Rampaul hit the highest score by a No. 10, overtaking Mohammad Amir’s unbeaten 73 for Pakistan against New Zealand at Abu Dhabi in 2009/10. Batting with Kemar Roach (24*) at No. 11, Rampaul hit a record six sixes for a No. 10 and shared a 99-run last-wicket stand.
In the following match at Ahmedabad, Rampaul picked up the man of the match award for his bowling with 4-57. He collected the prized wickets of opener Virender Sehwag and No. 3 Gautam Gambhir, both for first-ball ducks. Coincidentally, Rampaul had inflicted similar damage upon Pakistan in a one-day international at Bridgetown earlier in the year. In the match at Kensington Oval, Pakistan’s No.2 Ahmed Shehzad and No. 3 Asad Shafiq were also dismissed for a first-ball duck by Rampaul.
• While captaining Lancashire against Gloucestershire in a County Championship match in Liverpool in 2013, Glen Chapple reached the first-class milestones of 9,000 wickets and 8,000 runs on the same day. The following month, Chapple was in the thick of it in a match at Chelmsford, scoring an unbeaten 50 at No. 10 and taking 5-9 with Essex all out for 20.
Kyle Hogg took 4-11 in the demolition, and also scored a half-century (58) in the innings-and-105-run win. Slow bowler Simon Kerrigan also starred, securing a relatively rare feat with the bat. After taking 2-62 in Essex’s first innings, he then made 31, outscoring his opposition’s total, batting at No. 11.
• On top of taking a five-wicket haul in a Sheffield Shield match at the Adelaide Oval in 2012/13, Western Australia’s Michael Hogan also took part in two half-century last-wicket partnerships. He shared a tenth-wicket stand of 69 with Mike Hussey (99*) in the first innings, and a last-gasp one of 68 with Ashton Agar in the second, which saw WA pinch a miraculous one-wicket victory.
• Alongside scoring a double-century against Sri Lanka at Cape Town in 2011/12, Jacques Kallis also took six catches and three wickets in an innings. An unprecedented all-round feat in a Test match, Kallis had also weaved his magic in the previous summer, scoring a double-hundred and taking two wickets and two catches against India at Pretoria.
• In the same match that Garry Sobers scored his maiden century in the Sheffield Shield, the great West Indies all-rounder also achieved his then-best figures in first-class cricket. Representing South Australia in 1961/62, Sobers hit 251 and backed it up with 6-72 in a 130-run win over New South Wales in Adelaide.
In 2005/06, fellow West Indian Marlon Samuels began a tour of Australia with a maiden double-century and a maiden five-wicket haul in the same first-class match. Playing against Queensland at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane, Samuels scored 257, with 34 fours and eight sixes, and then bowling some gentle off-spin, returned career-best first-class figures of 5-87.
• Afghanistan’s Mohammad Nabi turned in one of the great all-round performances in 2013 with an unbeaten 80 and a five-for in a 50-over match against Namibia. In the ICC World Cricket League Championship match at Windhoek, Nabi scored 81 not out with four fours and five sixes – at a strike rate of 180.00 – and then took 5-12 with an economy rate of 1.46.
• To accompany a century in the opening match of the 2008/09 Logan Cup, two Easterns players also achieved career-best bowling figures. Hamilton Masakadza returned a match double of 107 and 5-1-11-4 in the match against Westerns at Harare, while his team-mate Steven Nyamuzinga hit 120 in the same innings and posted bowling figures of 4-3-2-3.
• Quintin McMillan was a South African leg-spinner who played in just nine first-class matches at home, five of which were Tests. He took nine wickets (3-24 and 6-48) on his first-class debut, for Transvaal against Eastern Province at Cape Town in 1928/29 and then scored an unbeaten 185 in his second match, against Orange Free State.
• Pakistan achieved a win at Newlands in 2013/14 after their two debutants starred with both bat and ball. In the opening match of the ODI series in South Africa, Pakistan reached 218/9 thanks to an entertaining eighth-wicket 74-run stand between new boys Bilawal Bhatti (39) and Anwar Ali (43*). The duo then ripped through South Africa (195) with Bhatti taking 3-37 and Ali 2-24.
• Opening the bowling and batting at No. 11 at Dubai in 2011/12, Pakistan’s Aizaz Cheema achieved identical figures with both bat and ball in each innings. In the third Test of the series against England, Cheema scored 0 not out and 0 not out and had twin returns of 4-0-9-0.
• On his way to becoming the first New Zealander to take eight wickets on his debut, Mark Craig became the first player to hit a six off the first ball he faced in a Test. The Otago off-spinner snared 4-91 in the West Indies’ first innings at Kingston in 2014, scored seven not out with a six, and then took 4-97: “It was nice to go bang-bang there, bit of a dream start.”
West Indies spinner Shane Shillingford took five wickets in the match and coupled it with a maiden Test fifty. Batting at No. 11, he made the highest score in the second innings with an unbeaten 53 off 29 balls. He got to his half-century off just 25 deliveries – a West Indies record – becoming the first No. 11 to hit five sixes in an innings.
• In the Ashes opener of 2013/14, Mitchell Johnson took 9-103 and scored 103 runs. He became only the third player to score and concede the same number of runs in excess of 100 in the same Test, after Viv Richards and Tony Mann.
• On the final day of the fourth Test against England at Birmingham in 2004, West Indies opener Chris Gayle achieved his first-ever five-wicket haul in first-class cricket and then brought up a fifty with ten fours and a six. Gayle scored 82, falling 18 runs short of becoming the first player in history to score a century and take five wickets (5-34) on the same day of a Test match.
• In the same match that he became the 2,000th player to bowl a ball in a Test, West Australian spinner Ashton Agar became the first No. 11 to score a half-century on his Test debut. After scoring a new high for a No. 11 with 98, he then became the first teenage Australian spinner to claim a Test wicket when he picked up the prized scalp of England captain Alastair Cook.
• After one of the worst possible starts to a player’s first-class career, Tasmanian all-rounder Evan Gulbis later became the first Australian to score a double-century batting at No. 8 in a first-class match. In 2011/12, Gulbis made a pair on his first-class debut, and copped another in his second match. He became just the second specialist batsman in Sheffield Shield history – and the first in a century – to make ducks in his first four innings. William Carlton, who made his Sheffield Shield debut for Victoria in 1901/02, was the other to begin his career in similar circumstances. Only bowlers Albert Wright (6), Wayne Holdsworth (5) and Troy Cooley (5) had experienced longer scoreless stints to the starts of their Shield careers.
Facing South Australia at Hobart in 2013/14, Gulbis came to the crease with just 217 runs in 17 first-class innings and a highest score of 80. He went on to achieve his maiden first-class century, finishing on 229, the highest-ever score by a No. 8 batsman in Australian first-class cricket. To cap off a remarkable day, he then picked up a wicket with his second delivery in South Australia’s second innings and mopped up the tail finishing with 4-7 in a massive innings victory: “It was obviously my day wasn’t it? Cricket can be like that. I’ve seen the other side of it as well so it is good to have a bit of a leveller in this game.”
• Facing defeat at Delhi in 2012/13, the big-hitting Glenn Maxwell was promoted to open the second innings, becoming the first Australian in nearly 85 years to open both the batting and bowling in the same Test. Percy Hornibrook was the previous player to do so – on his Test debut – against England at the MCG in 1928/29. Just two Tests later – against England at Lord’s in the 2013 Ashes – it happened again, with opening batsman Shane Watson sharing the new ball with Ryan Harris in the second innings.
• During his best score in a one-day international, fast bowler Brett Lee hit 50 runs in boundaries having just conceded 50 runs in boundaries with the ball. Batting at No. 8 in the fourth one-day international against the West Indies at Gros Islet in 2011/12, Lee hit 59, his first half-century in six years. The highest score for Australia in the match, Lee struck five fours and five sixes, having opened the bowling with 2-72, during which he was hit for 50 runs in fours (8) and sixes (3).
• After passing 150 with the bat for the first time, Northerns wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen took a wicket in the same match with his first delivery in first-class cricket. In the 2013/14 Provincial Three-Day Competition match against South Western Districts at Pretoria, Klaasen took five catches behind the stumps, scored 185 and took 1-12 in the second innings in which all 11 Northerns players bowled.
• Although he presided over a loss at Savar in the 2013/14 Bangladesh Cricket League, Mohammad Mahmudullah became the first captain to achieve the all-round feat of a century and four wickets in four balls in first-class history. Only the second player to secure such a double – after Hampshire’s Kevan James against the Indians at Southampton in 1996 – Mahmudullah scored 105 not out and returned match figures of 5-144 for Central Zone against North Zone.
• In the same match that he shared a half-century tenth-wicket partnership, New Zealand’s Trent Boult achieved his maiden ten-wicket haul in a Test. After Boult and wicketkeeper B.J. Watling had become the first pair to record three 50-run tenth-wicket stands in Test cricket, he took 10-80 in an innings victory against the West Indies at Wellington in 2013/14.
• Pakistani batting legend Javed Miandad began his Test career in 1976/77 with a century on debut and the wicket of New Zealand all-rounder Richard Hadlee. Miandad went on to capture as many as 13 wickets in his first six Tests, but managed just four more in his next 118. A leg-spinning all-rounder in his early days, he claimed 191 wickets in first-class cricket, with a best innings-return of 7-39.
• Captaining the West Indies against South Africa at Sydney in the 2015 World Cup, Jason Holder became the first bowler to concede over 100 runs and score a fifty in the same one-day international. Opening the bowling, Holder returned figures of 1-101 and with the bat scored 56 at No. 9, his maiden half-century in one-day international cricket.
A.B. de Villiers took a particular liking to Holder, taking 76 runs off his bowling on his way to 162, reaching 150 off a record-breaking 64 balls. De Villiers struck seven fours and six sixes off the 21 deliveries he received from Holder, who also became the first bowler to give away 100 runs when captaining his side in a one-day international.
In the West Indies’ previous match – against Zimbabwe in Canberra – Chris Gayle had become the first player to score a double-century (215) and take two wickets (2-35) in the same one-day international.