10 Weird Cricket Facts

Sep 15, 2020 at 6:17 PM

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10 Weird Cricket Facts

Cricket, as they say, is a game of glorious uncertainties. Nothing can ever be taken for granted in the game. On a day, the best team will maintain its dominance by just demolishing other teams and making a mess of them. While on a certain day even the best team will be humbled by a lesser-known opponent. Thereby, it’s this unpredictable nature of the game, which adds that extra spice in it. Viewers simply are thrilled to witness the unexpected twists and turns. These twists and turns ensure an edge of the seat thriller.

As a result of cricket is an unpredictable sport, there have been bizarre instances which have come up in the years gone by. In this article, we have a look at the ten weird facts which source from cricket.

10 Weird Cricket Facts

1. A Six as long as 556 miles! Really?

10 Weird Cricket Facts
Jimmy Sinclair (Image Credit: Google)

Well, this is undoubtedly the most bizarre fact related to cricket. Just imagine the facial expressions of a bowler, who realizes that he has been hit for a six and the ball has travelled for 556 miles. Jimmy Sinclair was the batsman who hit the epic six. The ball went out of the ground and landed on a train which was on its way to Port Elizabeth. It was recovered from there!

2. When Sunil Gavaskar went into the ultra-slow mode

Sunil Gavaskar (Image Credit: Google)

Sunil Gavaskar was known to be the most steady test batsman and uprooting him was one hell of a task for the bowlers. But once during the 1975 World Cup, Gavaskar did not realize the difference between a test and an ODI as he went into the ultra-slow mode. Against England in a 60-over game, while India was chasing above 300, Gavaskar played an innings of 36 off 174. And he surely carried his bat till the entire 60 overs!

3. Most ducks in an international innings

Mali women’s national cricket team (Image Credit: Google)

Mali women’s national cricket team is holding this record. In their first-ever international match, a T20I against Rwanda women at Rwanda on 18th June 2019, nine Mali batters scored ducks in that game. While they were all out on just six runs, only the opener Mariam Samake (1) managed to open her account and the lower-order batswoman Balkissa Coulibaly remained not out on 0 runs.

In men’s international cricket history, the record is six ducks in an innings and it happened in many times in different formats.

4. A “legal” 14 ball over!

This was a game between Barbados and British Guyana in 1946. In this game, a 14 ball over was bowled despite the bowler not bowling any wides or no balls. Back in those days, there were overs which last for 8 balls. The additional 6 balls were bowled because of the umpire’s fault! Seriously, now that is some poor umpiring!

5. 4204 wickets for a single bowler!

Wilfred Rhodes (Image Credit: Google)

Wilfred Rhodes of England has 4204 wickets to his name while he represented Yorkshire in first-class cricket. Not to forget another stat, Rhodes also has 39,969 first-class runs to his name. Now that is a genuine all-rounder for sure!

6. Most consecutive maiden overs

Bapu Nadkarni
Bapu Nadkarni (Image Credit: Google)

Bapu Nadkarni of India holds the record of bowling the maximum number of maiden overs on the trot. Nadkarni 21 consecutive maiden overs against England in Chennai in a test match in 1963-64. Nadkarni out of a total of 29 overs, bowled 26 maiden overs. Out of those 26 maidens, 21 were bowled consecutively. Now that is serious consistency!

7. Jayasuriya is a more successful bowler than Shane Warne

Sanath Jayasuriya (Image Credit: Google)

Statistics can surely be misleading and here is another classic instance. As per the wickets column, Jayasuriya is a more successful ODI bowler than Shane Warne. In 445 matches, Jayasuriya has 323 wickets; while Shane Warne 293 wickets in 194 matches! More wickets matter don’t they?

Shane Warne
Shane Warne (Image Credit: Google)

8. Longest individual innings of all time

Hanif Mohammad (Image Credit: Google)

Hanif Mohammad of Pakistan was the original Little Master and he was the deserving winner of the title. The Pakistani legend holds the record for batting for the longest duration. In a Test against West Indies at Bridgetown in January 1958, he batted for 970 minutes against a feared West Indies bowling attack. Simply phenomenal! The right-handed batsman scored 337 runs in that innings.

9. Youngest cricketers

Meet Bhavsar batting (Image Credit: ICC)

According to the records, the youngest international cricketer ever to play was Meet Bhavsar. The Kuwait wicketkeeper-batsman made his T20I debut on 20th January 2019 at the age of 14 years and 211 days when they faced the Maldives at Al Amerat. Before him, the previous record-holder was the Pakistan cricketer Raza Hasan who made his Test debut at the age of 14 years 227 days. In October 1996, Raza made his international debut against Zimbabwe in Faisalabad Test.

10. Ajmal and his Man of the Match issue!

Saeed Ajmal (Image Credit: Google)

Saeed Ajmal has been a great match-winner for Pakistan. But in a career of 113 ODI’s and after taking 184 wickets, the wizard offie has never won the Man of the Match Award. Ajmal surely missed out on a prestigious award here!

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