Australia vs India
29 December 2018
Tim Paine sledged Rishabh Pant behind the stumps by offering to babysit Pant's kids so he could come play for the Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash.
Various
2018-12-30
Shane Warne's commentary career was filled with entertaining moments, from his obsessive pizza ordering to his often wildly wrong predictions and enthusiastic analysis.
Zimbabwe vs England
1996-12-22
The first Test between Zimbabwe and England at Bulawayo in December 1996 ended in a draw with the scores level — the first ever in Test history. Coach David 'Bumble' Lloyd, frustrated by Zimbabwe's defensive tactics, told a press conference 'we flippin' murdered em'. He was reprimanded by the ECB.
Australia
1981-12-12
Australian captain Greg Chappell, the most prolific batsman in the country, made four ducks in a row across Tests and ODIs during the 1981-82 home summer — and seven ducks across the season — earning the temporary nickname 'Chappello'.
England touring party
1968-01-07
England off-spinner Fred Titmus lost four toes on his left foot on 7 January 1968 when his foot was caught in the propeller of a motorboat during a rest-day excursion in Barbados. He was immediately taken to hospital, operated on, and — in a feat of recuperation that stunned his team — was bowling again within a year, his spinning action apparently unchanged by the loss of the toes.
Australia, England
1907-12-13
Charlie Macartney, picked as a left-arm spinner with handy lower-order batting, made his Test debut at Sydney in December 1907. Kent's KL Hutchings, observing Macartney's confident demeanour at the wicket, dubbed him 'The Governor-General' — a name meant ironically (Macartney was barely 21) but one that stuck for the rest of his career.
London County, English first-class counties
1900-04-15
In 1900 W.G. Grace, then 51, took up an offer from the Crystal Palace Company to run a first-class cricket club at Sydenham. London County CC played first-class matches from 1900 to 1904 (their friendly status meant they could not enter the County Championship), then declined as Grace aged. The whole venture closed in 1908 — the same year Grace played his last first-class match.
Yorkshire and representative sides
1866-06-01
Tom Emmett of Halifax made his Yorkshire debut in 1866 and immediately announced himself as one of the most ferocious and entertaining left-arm pace bowlers in England. Combining genuine speed with an erratic brilliance — in an era before coaching had standardised line and length he bowled fast, sharp and wildly — Emmett was also one of Victorian cricket's most beloved characters, whose wit and personality made him as famous in dressing rooms as his bowling made him dangerous on the pitch.
Surrey and England representative sides
1863-06-01
Harry Jupp of Surrey was one of Victorian cricket's great defensive batsmen — a stonewaller of such impenetrable technique that contemporaries called him 'Young Stonewall' and marvelled at his ability to bat through entire sessions without apparent risk of dismissal. His method was unromantic but effective; he scored over 23,000 first-class runs at an average of 22, represented England in the first two Test matches of 1876–77, and drove bowlers to distraction with a patience that the entertainment-hungry Victorian public occasionally found trying.
Surrey and England representative sides
1861-06-01
James Southerton of Surrey was a right-arm off-break bowler who played first-class cricket from 1854 to 1879 and made history in 1877 when, aged 49 years and 119 days, he became the oldest man ever to play Test cricket on debut — representing England in the very first Test match at Melbourne. His long career and late-blooming international recognition made him one of Victorian cricket's most unusual figures.
Women's cricket clubs, principally Surrey and Kent
1846-08-01
Women's cricket in the 1840s continued the tradition of village women's matches that had been established in the eighteenth century, with fixtures between women's sides from villages in Surrey and Kent drawing curious crowds who came as much to watch an unusual spectacle as to follow the cricket. The matches were informal and commercially insignificant but their persistence through the mid-Victorian era maintained a continuous women's cricket tradition that the late Victorian women's clubs would later build upon.
n/a
1840-06-01
Nicholas Wanostrocht ('Felix'), the Kent batsman and schoolmaster, patented in 1837 the catapulta — a mechanical contraption that propelled a cricket ball at a batsman by means of a sprung Indian-rubber arm. The first bowling machine in cricket history, it was demonstrated at Lord's, used at Felix's school for batting practice, and described in his 1845 manual.
Gentlemen vs Players
1821-07-24
Billed in honour of George IV's accession, the so-called 'Coronation Match' between the Gentlemen and the Players at Lord's in July 1821 ended in farce when the Gentlemen, having been bowled out for 60 and watching the Players cruise to 270 for 6 (Thomas Beagley made 113 not out, the first century in the fixture's history), simply gave up and conceded defeat midway through the second day.
n/a
1818-11-05
In November 1818, between his cricket and hunting seasons, George Osbaldeston walked 200 miles in 36 hours on Newmarket Heath for a wager of 1,000 guineas. The feat — completed inside the time, with Osbaldeston resting only twice — was reported across the sporting press and is the most famous of his many cross-disciplinary athletic exploits. It is a piece of the Regency sporting culture that linked cricket to pedestrianism, prize-fighting and turf.
MCC and various private elevens
1816-07-01
Through the 1810s the Yorkshire squire George Osbaldeston was bowling underarm so fast that wicketkeepers reportedly stuffed straw down their shirts as makeshift body padding before facing him. There were no protective gloves, no helmets, no chest guards in 1815 cricket; the underarm ball, skidding low off Lord's pitches at speeds estimated to be the equivalent of a modern medium-pacer, could break ribs and crack collarbones. Osbaldeston's bowling produced more bruised wicketkeepers than any other in his era and gave Regency cricket one of its most enduring slapstick images.