Cricket has always been my favorite topic on this website. Article I have written in the past about cricket include, 50 Interesting and Amazing Facts About Indian Cricket, Top 10 India’s Memorable Cricketing Moments of the Decade, 50 Amazing Facts About Sachin Tendulkar, 50 Best Quotes By Navjot Singh Sidhu. I have written very little about this game on an international level. So why not? Here are 50 Interesting Facts About International Cricket.
1-10
1. Despite averaging just over 42 in Test Cricket, Sourav Ganguly’s average never fell below 40 at any point in time during his entire career.
2. Sourav Ganguly is the only cricketer to have won four successive Man of the Match awards in ODIs. He got these 4 MoM awards within a period of 8 days (Sept 14 to Sept 21, 1997).
3. Cameron White is the only player to play the role of a specialist bowler and a specialist batsman at different point of time for Australia. In spite of this, he was never considered as an all-rounder during the selection procedure. He was included in the team as a specialist spin bowler in 2004 Test Squad for India tour. He then played several matches as a specialist bowler. Then he turned into specialist batsman, somehow and hardly bowled at International level after that.
4. Shahid Afridi has played 350 ODIs, where he scored 7360 runs with 6 centuries and 35 half centuries, but he has not played 100 balls in an innings yet. In his highest scoring game of 124, he faced just 94 deliveries.
5. David Warner is the only Australian cricketer in the last 100 years of their cricketing history, who has played his first international match without playing a single first class (domestic) match before that.
6. Zimbabwe has won more Test matches than Australia this year.
7. On 3rd Sept 2013, Boyd Rankin, playing for England, dismissed Ed Joyce of Ireland. In the2007 World Cup, Rankin playing for Ireland dismissed Joyce, who was then playing for England.
8. South African batsman, Ryan Ten Doeschate has highest ODI average which is 67.00 at present and no one is even close to break it.
9. Since 2008, no one has replaced the South African bowler Dale Steyn as the No. 1 test bowler ICC rankings. Now, that’s dominance
10. A match between Barbados and British Guiana in 1946 saw an over with 14 deliveries, in which there were no wides or no balls. It was an era of an 8 ball over and the extra six deliveries were allowed due to the umpire miscounting his deliveries. – Source
11-20
11. The above picture shows the evolution of the cricket bat from 1720s that resembled a hockey stick to its current form.
12. The only law of Cricket that hasn’t been changed or modified is the length of the pitch (22 yards).
13. Cricket has appeared in the Olympics only twice. The first time it happened was in 1896 in Athens, however, when it came down to it there were not enough teams to compete so the competition did not occur. Then, in 1900 at the Paris Olympics, only two teams were able to compete: Great Britain and France. The winner, Great Britain, received the gold medal.
14. One of the most astonishing bowling analyses on record is credited to by R.G. Nadkarni in the India v. England Test at Madras in 1964. It read 31-27-5-0 (31 overs, 27 maidens, 5 runs, 0 wickets) and, according to reports, English batsmen said he was ‘unhittable’.
15. In 1829, James Broadbridge from the England team literally threw his bat at a wide ball. The bat and ball made contact in the air and the ball flew off to point where it was caught by William Ward and Broadbridge was declared out.
16. There was an Australian cricketer in 1870’s named George Bailey, who is great-great-grandfather of current Australian ODI skipper George Bailey.
17. The player who has played most number of games without having a single man of the match award to his name is Nayan Mongia (140 ODIS)
18. Normally sledging is considered as a disturbance, but here’s an exception. During the 1997 Ashes series, England’s coach David Lloyd and captain Michael Atherton came to a realization about Steve Waugh. He loved getting sledged. He actually thrived under it. So the English team made a decree. No one at all was to talk to Waugh when he came out to bat. Australia were 3-42 when Waugh came out to bat, and it didn’t take long for Waugh to realize that, “Oh, I get it. Nobody’s talking to Steve. OK! I’ll talk to my f***ing self then.” Waugh then proceeded to spend the next 4 hours talking to himself while making 108 runs. The next innings England repeated the silent treatment, and Waugh repeated his efforts. He made 116 in the second innings.
19. Another interesting incidence of sledging was Australian 12th man Mike Whitney’s exchange with Ravi Shastri. Whitney: “If you leave the crease i‘ll break your f***ing head”. Shastri “If you could bat as well as you can talk you wouldn‘t be the f***ing 12th man.”
20. Another great incidence of sledging, Rod Marsh of Australia, “So how‘s your wife and my kids?” Ian Botham, “The wife is fine, but the kids are retarded.”
21-30
21. On Nov. 14, 1993, Jonty Rhodes took 5 catches (most by any ground fielder, in a match) and was awarded man of the match for his brilliant effort. Although he scored just 40 runs with the bat, the major reason was assumed to be his fielding. It is said that when he was playing on secondary level (School level), he was not included in the playing 11. He went as a substitute fielder and took 7 catches and was awarded man of the match award. Apart from this, there is no incidence where 12th man got man of the match. After that the team started including him in playing 11 and later he created wonders and became one of the most respected players of the game.
22. John Traicos was born in Egypt to Greek parents. He played test cricket for South Africa & Zimbabwe and is currently living in Australia. He had a 23 year long career, in which he played just 7 Tests and 27 ODIs. He debuted in 1970 and played his last test in 1993.
23. On November 12, 2013, Nathan McCullum became the 7th batsmen to hit a six off last ball to win an ODI. Other 6 player to achieve this feat were Miandad, Klusener, B Taylor, Chanderpaul, E Rainsford & McLaren.
24. Saeed Ajmal of Pakistan, currently No. 1 ODI bowler has never won a Man of the Match award in an ODI. He has played 94 matches raking in 152 wickets.
25. Rahul Dravid has seen 453 wickets fall at the other end during his entire test career, most by any batsman.
26. The longest cricket match in history occurred in 1939 between England and South Africa in Durban. It was an untimed match. It lasted for 10 days. England needed 42 more runs to win, but the team’s boat was sailing home the next day and so the match was abandoned anddeclared a draw.
27. During a 1984 tour of Zimbabwe, Australian batsman Greg Ritchie let chimpanzees loose in his team’s locker room. Ritchie was scratched from play due to an illness and borrowed the chimps for a joke.
28. Shahid Afridi used a bat borrowed from Waqar Younis to score the fastest century in a One-Day International.
29. In the first ever Test in 1877, Australia beat England by 45 runs. 100 years later, in the Centenary Test, the result was exactly the same.
30. In the January 1990 test match between Sri-Lanka and Australia, Sri Lanka lost their last six wickets for 8 runs off 371 balls in Melbourne.
31-40
31. Ab de Villiers (Abraham de Villiers) was shortlisted for national hockey and football squads. He was captain of the SA junior Rugby. He is still the holder of six SA school swimming records, the fastest 100 m time in SA juniors, a member of SA Junior Davis Cup team, the National Badmintion U-19 champion, received a national medal from Mandela for a science project, has a golf handicap of scratch, can captain, can keep wicket, can bat, can bowl and a brilliant fielder. In addition to this, he is a decent singer and his song albums have been released in the past years.
32. Jimmy Sinclair was the first South African to hit a test century. He also has supposedly hit the longest six in the history of the game. The story told in that the ball which he had hit for a six at the Old Wanderers’ Ground in Johannesburg (Central) landed on a train bound for Port Elizabeth and was only recovered at that destination. This ball was for many years on display at the Wanderers’ clubhouse (both old and new grounds) until a fire in the latter part of the 20th century.
33. Javed Miandad & Herbert Sutcliffe are the only batsmen, whose batting average never dropped below 50.00 throughout their career, not to forget that they had played 124 and 54 tests respectively.
34. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (writer Sherlock Holmes) was also a pretty decent cricketer. He played 10 first class matches for the Marleybone Cricket Club (MCC) between 1899 and 1907.
35. People with the surname “Patel” have played international cricket for at least five countries – India, New Zealand, Kenya (as well as East Africa), Canada and England.
36. Pommie Mbangwa, the Zimbabwean fast bowler who is now a commentator, averaged just 2.00 from 25 innings (including eight not-outs). He has the lowest Test batting average in tests.
37. The 2023 World Cup will be played in India again.
38. Inzamam-ul-haq took a wicket on the very first ball of his bowling career and the batsman to get out was Brian Lara.
39. To be dismissed for nought in both innings of the same match is called pair of spectacles or simply pair. To be dismissed first ball in both innings (i.e., two golden ducks) is called a king pair. Adam Gilchrist and Virendra Sehwag are only batsmen to have suffered a king pair.
40. Deandra Dottin of West Indies holds the record of fastest T-20 International hundred (38 ball) and yes, she is a woman.
41-50
41. Gambling (modern day betting) in cricket has been practiced from the 18th century onwards.
42. The ComBat was an aluminium cricket bat that was first used by Denis Lillee. It was the subject of a hot incident that occurred at the WACA cricket ground in Perth in December 1979.
43. There have been only two tied matches in test cricket and Australia was one of the sides in both the matches.
44. Victories by side following on – This has happened three times in test history, and all three times Australia was at the losing end.
45. Isuru Udana of the Sri Lankan team achieved a unique distinction of taking a hat-trick in just two (legal) deliveries. Mathew Sinclair, the second wicket of the hat-trick was out stumped off a wide-ball. – Source
46. Australia and England started the international one-day cricket in 1971, while west-indies and India started playing ODIs in 1974. Just a year later in 1975, West-Indies won the world cup.
47. Against England, at Lord’s in 1990, India needed 24 runs to avoid the follow-on, with 1-wicket in hand. After playing the first 2 balls of the over defensively Kapil Dev hit off-spinner Eddie Hemmings for 4 consecutive sixes (the only time this has ever been done), to avoid the follow-on. On the next ball, the #11 batsman Narendra Hirwani was dismissed by Angus Fraser.
48. Wilfred Rhodes of England has batted at all 11 positions in test cricket. His feat was was only emulated by Vinoo Mankad of India.
49. The only wicket keeper to have stumped Sir Donald Bradman was Prabir Sen of India.
50. The highest team total in a first class cricket innings is 1,107 runs by Victoria v New South Wales in 1926-27.
Most of these facts have been gathered by Quoran Abhijeet Pawar.
