3. Birthday Boys, Saqlain Mushtaq & Syed Kirmani (December 29)
Two of the fine cricketers to represent their countries on a national level, Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq and India’s Syed Kirmani were born on this day in 1976 & 1949, respectively.
Saqlain, who popularised the concept of ‘Doosra‘, played 218 International games and took nearly 596 wickets across both formats. In the limited over format, Mushtaq had two hat-tricks to his name and both came against Zimbabwe, including one in 1999 World Cup. His ODI bowling average of 21.78 couldn’t be matched, even by his competitors of that era, like Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble.
Syed Kirmani, one of India’s most renowned and acclaimed wicket-keeper was born on this day in 1949. A decent gloveman behind the stumps, Syed out of his 198 dismissals in Tests had 38 stumping to his name. He was also the first wicket-keeper to make five dismissals in a world cup match, against Zimbabwe in 1983 World Cup, before guiding his country to its maiden World Cup title against West Indies in final.