Ten interesting cricket facts

The game of cricket is considered to be one of the oldest games which is played worldwide. Cricket is a game of unpredictability and every year, new records are created. Since the first officially recognized Test match was played on 15 March 1877, international cricket has now survived more than 141 years, spanning across three different centuries.

A lot of players have engraved their name into the hall of fame and considered to be as the legends of cricket. Given this long a duration, a few memorable happenings were bound to have occurred.

Here are some facts, figures, and records that are worth knowing.

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1) First wicket as bowled: Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the only bowler in cricket history to get his first wicket in all three formats of the game as bowled.

2) Unbeaten centuries: Shivnarine Chanderpaul holds the record of most unbeaten centuries in test cricket. He made 18 unbeaten centuries out of his 30 centuries in Test matches.

3) Longest start without a duck: Faf du Plessis is the only player in the history of cricket to have played 100 consecutive innings without getting dismissed for a duck from his debut.

4) Whitewash: Australia is the only team to whitewash every single Test playing nation, in the Test cricket.

5) Consecutive Player of the Match awards: Sourav Ganguly is the only player, to have won four consecutive awards in ODI cricket.

6) Most numbers of maidens: Muttiah Muralitharan holds the record for the highest number of maiden overs i.e. 1992 overs, bowled in the international cricket.

7) Most numbers of hat-tricks: Wasim Akram is the only bowler who has taken 2 hat-tricks in Test as well as ODI cricket.

8) Finishing the match with a six: MS Dhoni holds the record of closing out a match with six, on nine occasions for India, in ODI cricket.

9) hundred in the first innings as opener: KL Rahul is the only opener who has scored a century in his maiden innings as an opening batsman, in ODI as well as Tests.

10) Number coincidence: Alec Stewart was born on 8-4-63 and he scored 8463 Test runs.