List of some unique yet special records in Cricket

What would sports be without records? Records, in a way, define sports and sportspersons. All of us keep a track of various records being created & broken in different sports. In cricket, most of us know the record holders of popular records like Most matches played, Most number of runs, Most number of wickets etc.

However, there are numerous other records which are unique and special in their own way but do not enjoy much popularity.

Here’s presenting a list of ten such records:

1. Indian cricketer, Rameshchandra Gangaram Nadkarni, popularly known as Bapu Nadkarni, holds the record of bowling 21 consecutive maiden overs (131 consecutive dot balls). This astonishing feat came in the Madras Test against England in 1963-64. He finished with figures of 32-27-5-0 in that innings. With a career spanning 41 tests, he had a career economy rate of less than 2 runs per over.

2. Sri Lankan great, Muttiah Muralitharan has an incredible record of bagging 10 wickets and more in a test match in 4 consecutive test matches. And if you thought this is amazing, be ready for more. He has done it not once, but twice in his career, once in 2001 and once in 2006.

3. Australian legend, Sir Don Bradman holds the record for scoring hundreds in 6 consecutive test matches. All of them came against England, 3 of them in Australia in 1937 and the remaining 3 in England in 1938.

The Greatest ever!

4. The number of international centuries that Sachin Tendulkar has scored (100 to be precise) itself is an unimaginable achievement. Just to add to it, he also holds the record for having the most number of nineties in international cricket. He has 10 nineties in Tests & 18 nineties in ODIs. So that’s a total of 28 nineties in international cricket for the Little Master.

Truly a ‘Run Machine’

5. Graham Mckenzie of Australia, who possessed an easy but deceptive approach and action, has the unique record of bagging most wickets taken hit-wicket. He has 4 wickets taken hit-wicket in his career.

6. Trevor Bailey of England holds the record of hitting the slowest half century in Test cricket. In the 1958-59 Ashes Tour to Australia, he took 350 balls to reach his half century. This, incidentally, was also the first test match to be broadcast on television in Australia.

At his defensive best!

7. Len Hutton of England is the first and only man in Test Cricket to be given out obstructing the field. He edged a ball in the air and legitimately knocked it away from his wickets with his bat; in doing so, he prevented a catch being taken and was given out.

Weird dismissal

Ramiz Raja, Mohinder Amarnath and Inzamam-ul-Haq hold this dubious record in the ODIs.

8. Sri Lankan batsmen, Marvan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene hold the unique record of being the only batsmen to be retired-out in an international cricket test match. Both of them were retired-out in 2001 in a test match against Bangladesh.

Retired Out

9. James Southerton(L) of England holds the record of being the oldest cricketer to make a test debut. At the age of 49 years & 119 days, he made his debut against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on 15^th March 1877. His career was short-lived as he played a total of 2 test matches only. In 1880, he also became the first test cricketer to die.

Nolan Clarke (R) of the Netherlands holds this record in ODIs. He made his ODI debut at an age of 47 years & 240 days.

10. Ricky Ponting of Australia is the only player to have scored a century in both innings of his 100^th test match. This came against the South Africans in Sydney in 2006. Scoring an unbeaten 143 off just 159 balls, he helped his team chase down 287 in the fourth innings on the final day of the test match.

Arguably the best player of the pull shot in the game