Cricket Records That May Never Be Broken

Think of big partnerships in school cricket and our thoughts automatically turn to Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli’s 664 runs in the 1980s. That record was broken in 2006 when another set of thirteen-year-olds from Hyderabad added 721 runs—in just 40 overs! B Manoj Kumar (320, 127 balls, with 46 fours) and Mohamed Shaibaaz Tumbi (327, 116 balls, with 67 fours) of St. Peter's High School destroyed St. Phillip's High School in this school game in Hyderabad. As if that wasn’t enough, St. Phillips folded for 21 runs, losing by 700 runs. "The umpires were also telling us that you just declare and go because the opponents cannot outscore you. But we said we want to at least complete 300 runs and then more," Shaibaaz said.

Yorkshire and England left-arm spinner Hedley Verity was a peerless bowler who took 1956 wickets in 378 First Class matches. He has taken all 10 wickets in an innings twice and holds the record for the best figures in an innings. Against Nottinghamshire in a home game in 1932, the wicket turned sticky and Verity rained hell on the visitors as they crashed for 44-0 to 67 all out. He took 10-10 in 19.4 overs, 16 of which were maidens.

Sachin Tendulkar has amassed a mountain of batting records. He has 15,921 Test runs with 51 hundreds in 200 matches, 18,426 ODI runs with 49 hundreds in 463 matches, and each of these numbers is unlikely to be topped.

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.

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.”

The man with the highest batting average in Test cricket is not Donald Bradman. It is West Indian wicketkeeper Andy Ganteaume who scored 112 in his only innings in 1948, thus finishing with an average of 112. But Bradman is the only batsman who averaged nearly a hundred over a long career. He averaged 99.94 for his 6,996 Test runs, and 95.14 for his 28,067 First Class runs. His closest competitor, if you could call her that, is Denise Annetts. The Australia woman’s cricketer averaged 81.90 over her short Test career of 13 Test innings. Only one other man averages over 70 in FC cricket: India’s Vijay Merchant. Barring any freak occurrences, Bradman’s numbers are out of the reach of mortals.

The legendary English all-rounder Wilfred Rhodes is the oldest man to ever play Test cricket. On 3 Apr 1930 he played against West Indies at the ripe old age of 52 years and 165 days.

The Test match between Australia and South Africa at Melbourne in 1932 was the shortest test match ever played with a result. The action was all over in five hours and 53 minutes. South Africa were dismissed for 36 and 45 against Australia’s “mammoth” total of 153.

Night watchmans job is to occupy the crease until the “stumps” and so protect other capable batsman from losing wicket near the end of the days play. However there have been occasions when night watchmen have made big scores, like Australia’s night watchman Jason Gillespie piled up an unbeaten 201 in a Test match against Bangladesh in 2006.

A ten wicket haul would a dream of any bowler but taking it twice in a match is simply out of this world. England`s Jim Laker has almost done it in in 1956 against Australia. He took 9 wickets in first innings and mange to clear the whole team in 2nd inning. His colossal match figure of 19 wickets for 90 runs is one of the unbreakable records for sure.