The bowler who bowled 20 overs without conceding a single run

In cricket, records are made or broken every day, but some records are indelible for decades, and Manish Majithia’s 20-20-0-1 is one of them. This happened in a Ranji Trophy match on 14th November 1999, in a clash between Madhya Pradesh and Railways in a central zone match at Maharani Usharaje Trust Cricket Ground, Indore.

Railways captain Prahlad Rawat won the toss and put the opponents into bat. On the second day, MP's 1st innings ended when they declared at 538 for 7 following which Railways scored 55 runs at the loss of 1 wicket. Failing to build strong partnerships, Railways perished for 216 runs the next day. Suffering from the follow-on, Railways ended Day 3 with 3 runs on board. On the last day, Railways had added only 83 runs in 104 overs to achieve a draw.

The 83 runs scored by Railways in a full day’s play is the world's First-Class record for the minimum number of runs scored in a day. The previous record was 95 runs in a one-off Test match at Karachi in 1956, where Australia lost all of their wickets for a mere score of 80 runs followed by Pakistan scoring only 15 runs at the end of the day.

When everyone looked back at the scorecard, they saw an amazing figure of 20-20-0-1 by Madhya Pradesh's left-arm orthodox Manish Majithia. His figures explained that he bowled 20 overs and took a wicket without conceding a single run in the third innings of the match.

His performance was not concealed for a long time from the record book, and he had set a new Ranji Trophy as well as a First-Class record of bowling the highest number of overs in a First-Class innings without conceding any runs at all.

Analyzing the stats of the match in depth, it was also realized that Manjithia had bowled 16 consecutive dot balls at the end of his spell in the first innings and 120 consecutive dot balls in the second innings, summing it up to 136 consecutive dot balls in a match.

However, his astounding performance did not break the record of South African legend, Hugh Tayfield. The former South African off-spinner had set the world record by bowling 137 consecutive dot balls (119 consecutive dot balls in first innings following up with 18 consecutive dot balls in the second innings) in a match against England at Durban in 1956.

The third place in this list is acquired by former Indian spinner, Bapu Nadkarni, who had bowled 131 consecutive dot balls against England at Madras in 1963.

Manish Babulal Manjithia‘s record will be a benchmark for the current bowlers in the game and the future generation to come.