5 one-hit wonders in cricket

Throughout the history of cricket, there have been players whose careers have been like the journey of a meteor– rising in one single flash of brilliance before completely fading away. These cricketers produced performances that secured their place in the history books but couldn't establish a successful international career and were discarded not much later when the selectors realised that the special effort from them was a one-off and not going to be replicated

This is a list of 5 such players who came up with one memorable, even historic, performance but failed to produce anything else that was noteworthy. These efforts are memorable due to both the numbers generated and the context in which they were produced. Test cricket has been usually the stage of these kind of displays but occasionally the shorter formats have also witnessed them.

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#1 Jasu Patel

Jasubhai Patel's efforts gave India their 1st win over Australia

This little-known off-spinner from Gujarat holds a special place in the history of Indian cricket because of his exploits in one single, but historically very important, match. This was the Kanpur Test against Richie Benaud’s touring Australian team in December 1959.

Patel made his debut in 1955 but didn’t have any success in making a mark. Then in 1959, during the home series against Australia, the gut instinct of chief selector Lala Amarnath brought him back into the Indian team for the second Test after the hosts suffered a heavy defeat in the first.

It proved to be one of the greatest selectorial decisions of all time as Patel picked up an astonishing 9 wickets in Australia’s first innings and followed it up with 5 in the second innings to give India its first-ever Test win over Australia. His 9/69 were the best figures for an Indian bowler until Anil Kumble took all 10 in an innings against Pakistan.

In his four Tests before this game and two afterwards, there was nothing to remember, but this one single performance made him a superstar. He was even compared to actor Raj Kapoor for his looks. But it will be his bowling in that match that remains one of the great surprises that cricket has ever thrown up.

#2 Bob Massie

Bob Massie's memorable debut remained the only high-point of his career

In the case of this right-arm seamer, the single wondrous performance of his career came in his debut match, that too an Ashes Test in June 1972.

The typical Australian seamer is a strong, tall lad who could bowl fast and hit the deck hard. But Massie was more skilled at doing what English bowlers are known for– swinging the ball. And on a seamer-friendly Lord’s wicket, he swung the ball round corners and did so again in the second innings to finish with a haul of 16 wickets on his debut– eight each in both innings.

This secured his place in the annals of Australian cricket history. Massie played five more matches but failed to show any brilliance in them. There were even suspicions of ball-tampering on the side of the English players during the first Test and the fact that Massie never seemed to reproduce the kind of swing he did in the Lord’s Test is seen as lending weight to that theory.

Whatever may be the case, the fact that Australian bowlers dazzled the English at Lord’s, on his debut, through the art that they specialize in will always be fondly remembered by the Aussies.

#3 Jack Noreiga

Noreiga never played a Test after the India series

The history of West Indies cricket is adorned with names of many great bowlers but the man who occupies the top position as far as the list of best bowling figures for the Caribbean side is concerned is quite unknown.

Off-spinner Jack Noreiga played just four Tests– all of them in the 1971 series against India. With 9/95 in the first innings of the second Test at Port-of-Spain, he remains the only West Indian to pick nine wickets in an innings.

The numbers look impressive but they could be deceptive. Indian players on that tour claim that there was a deliberate strategy on their part to play badly against Noreiga in the practice game preceding the series and thereby persuade the West Indians to pick him over Lance Gibbs.

That strategy worked but did it also backfire? The Indian batsmen also claim that it wasn’t great bowling on Noreiga’s part that earned him the 9 wickets but instead recklessness from Indians arising out of their desire to dominate him that led to his rich haul. This also explains why the selectors did away with him and returned to Gibbs. Noreiga didn’t play any Test after the India series.

#4 Richard Levi

Richard Levi created a world record for fastest T20I ton but nothing else

Richard Levi became an overnight superstar when he smashed what at that time was the fastest hundred in T20I cricket against New Zealand at Hamilton in February 2012, in only his second international game. But all the predictions of him becoming the next big thing in the shortest format of the game proved to be wrong after bowlers discovered major chinks in his armour.

His 117* was laced with 13 sixes – many of them being the lethal sweeps off deliveries pitching around leg stump. He got to his century in 45 balls. But it was in that innings that his future decline’s seeds were sown.

His propensity to hit the ball fiercely on the leg side meant that bowlers realized the importance of giving him absolutely nothing on or around leg stump. When this strategy was implemented Levi was found heavily wanting and unable to score runs. He played 11 more matches after his hundred and his scores from those games, with very few exceptions, read like a telephone number.

Levi became a sitting duck and couldn’t correct the flaw of being too heavily biased towards scoring on the on-side. Eventually, he was left out of the South African team and is now plying his trade in some of the T20 leagues around the world.

#5 Peter Fulton

Fulton could manage to make an impact in only one Test of his career

Somebody who played 23 Test matches is not likely to be called a one-hit wonder but Peter Fulton has a great claim to this category as it was only in one Test that he made an impact.

Fulton had been in and out of the New Zealand team since making his debut in 2006 due to lack of performance. He got his last recall into the Kiwi Test team in 2013 for the three-match home Test series against England.

It was in the last Test of this series that ‘2-meter Peter’, as he is known due to his great height, produced the effort that qualifies him for this list. He scored hundreds in both innings of this Test at Auckland and launched a severe assault on the English bowlers in the later part of his knock in second innings.

After this display, selectors were keen to see him establish himself in the side but there were glaring technical flaws that were exploited by the bowlers. He was persisted with for 10 more matches after the Auckland Test but there wasn’t any notable contribution from him in any of them.

With age not being on his side, Fulton was dropped for good and the selectors decided to move on.