THE BIGGEST WIN: This may
be the most one-sided game in First Class history. In 1964, Pakistan
Railways chose to bat against Dera Ismail Khan in an Ayub Trophy game.
They stacked up 910-6. So demoralised were Dera Ismail, they were bowled
out for 32 in the first innings. In the second, they fared worse: they
made just 27. The defeat by a margin of an innings and 851 runs remains
the largest one in First Class cricket.
MOST WICKETS IN A MATCH:
There have been plenty of 17-fors in First Class cricket, but never an
18-for. Only one bowler has once managed 19. Jim Laker took an
incredible 19-90 in the Manchester Test against Australia in 1956: 9-37
in the first innings (7-8 off his last 22 balls) and 10-53 in the second
innings in 51.2 overs. No bowler has come within an earshot of this
incredible feat, which suggests that the record will stay with Laker for
long.
TENDULKAR’S INTERNATIONAL RUNS AND HUNDREDS:
Sachin Tendulkar has amassed a mountain of batting records. He has
15,476 Test runs with 51 hundreds in 196 matches, 18,426 ODI runs with
49 hundreds in 463 matches, and each of these numbers is unlikely to be
topped.
MURALITHARAN’S INTERNATIONAL WICKETS:
The Sri Lanka off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has 800 Test wickets and
534 ODI wickets. To fully fathom what Muralitharan has achieved in
Tests, take the current 100m sprint record and halve it. When Murali
started playing Test cricket, the record was a mere 431. With his
ruthless efficiency for consuming wickets, he has pushed the record to
heights that may not be touched again.
MOST CENTURIES & RUNS:
Jack Hobbs is the most prolific run-scorer in the history of the sport.
In a First Class career that spanned 834 matches over 29 years, the
Englishman made 61,760 runs with 199 hundreds. Oddly he made just one
triple hundred and only 16 doubles – something to do with his habit of
gifting away his wicket right after reaching his hundred. He could score
them on any wicket in any conditions. His colleague, the great Herbert
Sutcliffe would remark, “I was his partner on many occasions on
extremely bad wickets, and I can say this without any doubt whatever
that he was the most brilliant exponent of all time and quite the best
batsman of my generation on all types of wickets.”
40,000 RUNS AND 4000 WICKETS:
If you thought Kapil Dev’s 5000-odd runs and 400-odd wickets were
impressive you need to see Wilfred Rhodes’ numbers. In a career that
spanned over three decades, the English right-hand bat and left-arm
spinner scored 39,969 runs and took 4204 wickets. He is the
record-holder for wickets in First Class cricket, well clear of Kent
leg-spinner Tich Freeman who is in second position with 3776.
300 WICKETS IN A SEASON:
Anybody cricketer complaining about his workload need only look at Tich
Freeman’s stats. The England and Kent leg-spinner, a short man of about
5’2, took an astounding 304 wickets in the 1928 season. He bowled 1976.1
overs. The year was the start of Freeman’s incredible run of form. Over
the next seven years, his annual wickets tally read as follows: 267,
275, 276, 253, 298, 205 and 212. Most cricketers could consider
themselves fortunate to claim any of those numbers over a full career.
974 RUNS IN A TEST SERIES:
Wally Hammond must have been chuffed when he totalled 905 runs on the
Australian tour of 1928-29. In the next Ashes encounter, Don Bradman
broke that record and made 974 runs in the five-match series in England.
His scores read 8 & 131 at Trent Bridge, 254 & 1 at Lord’s, 334
at Headingley (309 of those on the first day of the match, another
record), 14 in Manchester and finally 232 at the Oval. The closest
anyone has come to breaking Bradman’s record is when Vivian Richards
bashed 829 runs out of the same opponent in 1976.
THE BIGGEST SCORE: In a
Sheffield Shield game in last week of 1926, Victoria made 1107 runs in
their first innings against New South Wale at the Melbourne Cricket
Ground. It’s just the second instance of a four-figure score in a First
Class cricket match. The first four entries on the scorecard read as
follows: Woodfull 133, Ponsford (in pic) 352, Hendry 100 and Ryder 295.
Victoria bettered their own record of 1059, made four seasons earlier
against Tasmania at the same ground. The closest any team has come to
bettering these marks is when Sri Lanka punished India for three days in
the Colombo Test of 1997, making a mind-boggling score of 952-6.
MOST RUNS IN AN INNINGS:
In 1899, 13-year-old Arthur Edward Jeune Collins (left, in a photo shot
in 1902) became a British celebrity when he made 628 runs in an innings
in a school game for Clarke’s House against North Town House. The
timeless match was played in Bristol in a smallish ground. Collins was
dropped on 80, 100, 140, 556 and 612. The innings started on June 22. He
remained unbeaten when the team was bowled out for 836 on June 26. In
the following days, North Town were bowled out for 87 and 61 with
Collins taking 11-63. Great praise was heaped on the teenager and much
was expected of him, cricket-wise. However, he met an early end aged 29
when he was killed in combat in France during the First World War.
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