Luke Ronchi makes double for Australia and New Zealand

Luke Ronchi played for New Zealand last week, after previously playing for Australia. This particular double is so called unique as no one had played for Australia and New Zealand in official internationals. Luke Ronchi, who was born in Dannevirke (New Zealand) but moved to Australia when he was only seven years old. He played four ODI’s in the West Indies in 2008, taking a catch off Brett Lee from the first ball he kept to, and also appeared in 3 Twenty20 games for Australia. Due to stiff competition Australian pecking order, and then eventually he returned to his native country, and has done very well for Wellington since. Luke Ronchi made his ODI debut for New Zealand at Lord's against England, but had to wait till the 11th over to get Ian Bell. Luke Ronchi is the 7th player to appear for two different countries in official one-day internationals, following Kepler Wessels (Australia and South Africa), Ed Joyce and Eoin Morgan (England and Ireland), Dougie Brown (England and Scotland), Anderson Cummins (West Indies and Canada), and Clayton Lambert (West Indies and USA).

 

James Anderson 300 Test Wicket before 30th Birthday

Jimmy Anderson took his 300th Test wicket at Lord's, aged only 30. Jimmy Anderson became the 26th bowler to reach 300 Test wickets when he had Peter Fulton caught at slip by his great mate Graeme Swann in the first innings at Lord's last month. Anderson is actually in a respectable mid-table position age-wise. He is the 13th-youngest (or 14th-oldest) of the 26, being five days younger than Glenn McGrath was when he reached the mark in 2000-01. The youngest man to reach 300 Test wickets is Indian Kapil Dev, who got there the day after his 28th birthday in January 1987. Shane Warne, Harbhajan Singh, Muttiah Muralitharan and Ian Botham were also 28 when they reached 300. The most interesting is oldest man to make it to 300 was West Indian off spinner Lance Gibbs, who was 41 in 1975-76.

 

Best Match Figures in Test defeat

Tim Southee took ten wickets in the Lord's Test - but New Zealand still lost. You will perhaps be surprised to discover that Tim Southee valiant effort at Lord's when he took 10 for 108 but still lost the test match was actually the 69th occasion on which a bowler has bagged ten or more wickets in a Test but finished up on the losing side. Pakistan left arm fast bowler Wasim Akram took ten but lost three times, while Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan, Tom Richardson, Saeed Ajmal, Hugh Trumble, Daniel Vettori and Shane Warne have all done it twice. The best match figures in defeat are Javagal Srinath's 13 for 132 for India against Pakistan in Kolkata in 1998-99. He took 5/46 in the first inning and 8/86 in the 2nd inning.

 

Leading Test Wicket Taker as Captain

Pakistan legend Imran Khan has taken the most wickets while captaining in Tests, and leading the way to took 187 wickets in Tests while captain. Australian leg spinner Richie Benaud is next with 138, and in fact there are only six other bowler-captains who took more than 100 wickets, Garry Sobers (117), Daniel Vettori (116), Kapil Dev (111), Wasim Akram (107), Bishan Bedi (106) and Shaun Pollock (103). Of these, Imran also has the best average (20.27) and strike rate (49.26 balls per wicket) while captain.

 

Father & Son Played Same Number of Test Matches

Which father-and-son pair played the same number of Test matches? The answer to this neat little conundrum is the Kanitkars from India: Hemant Kanitkar won two caps against West Indies in 1974-75, scoring 65 on his debut in Bangalore - and ...his son Hrishikesh (a left-hander, unlike his father) also won two caps, in Australia in 1999-2000, making 45 on debut in Melbourne. Hrishikesh, who's now 38, still captains Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy - he scored his 33rd first-class hundred last December.

 

Longest Test Career

Sachin Tendulkar has now been playing Test cricket for more than 23 years. He’s one of only 16 men whose Test careers have lasted longer than 20 years - the last one to complete two decades before him was John Traicos, of South Africa and Zimbabwe, in 1993. At the moment Sachin Tendulkar lies fifth on the all-time list - but he's going to have to hang on until he's 47 if he wants to claim the longest Test career of all, which is currently held by the Yorkshire and England all-rounder Wilfred Rhodes. He made his Test debut in 1899 (in WG Grace's final Test), and won the last of his 58 caps in the West Indies in April 1930, when he was, at 52, the oldest man ever to appear in a Test. In all Rhodes's Test career lasted 30 years and 315 days.

 

Martin Guptil 189 not out against England at Ageas Bowl

Martin Guptill sensing special feeling of becoming New Zealand's highest scorer in a one-day international after scorching unbeaten 189 at the Ageas Bowl . Martin Guptill often played alongside Lou Vincent, who scored 172 against Zimbabwe in 2005. Guptill knock is the fifth-highest ODI score by a batsman and the highest by a New Zealander, and is also the joint highest by any batsman in ODIs against England. West Indies great batsman Sir Viv Richards had scored the same number of runs against them at Old Trafford in 1984 off 170 balls, while Martin Guptill scored his runs off 155 balls.  Martin Guptill's 189 not out included 19 four’s and two sixes, aggregates only 88 of his runs came in boundaries, a % of 46.56. Among the 21 ODI innings of 175 or more, this is the second-lowest boundary percentage: only South African left hander Gary Kirsten's unbeaten 188 against UAE in the 1996 World Cup had a lower percentage - he hit 13 fours and four sixes, scoring 40.43% of his runs in boundaries.

 

Highest ODI Score
Player	Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Team	Opposition	Ground	Match Date
V Sehwag	219	149	25	7	India	v West Indies	Indore	8-Dec-11
SR Tendulkar	200*	147	25	3	India	v South Africa	Gwalior	24-Feb-10
CK Coventry	194*	156	16	7	Zimbabwe	v Bangladesh	Bulawayo	16-Aug-09
Saeed Anwar	194	146	22	5	Pakistan	v India	Chennai	21-May-97
IVA Richards	189*	170	21	5	West Indies	v England	Manchester	31-May-84
MJ Guptill	189*	155	19	2	New Zealand	v England	Southampton	2-Jun-13
ST Jayasuriya	189	161	21	4	Sri Lanka	v India	Sharjah	29-Oct-00
G Kirsten	188*	159	13	4	South Africa	v U.A.E.	Rawalpindi	16-Feb-96
SR Tendulkar	186*	150	20	3	India	v New Zealand	Hyderabad (Deccan)	8-Nov-99
SR Watson	185*	96	15	15	Australia	v Bangladesh	Dhaka	11-Apr-11
MS Dhoni	183*	145	15	10	India	v Sri Lanka	Jaipur	31-Oct-05
SC Ganguly	183	158	17	7	India	v Sri Lanka	Taunton	26-May-99
V Kohli	183	148	22	1	India	v Pakistan	Dhaka	18-Mar-12
ML Hayden	181*	166	11	10	Australia	v New Zealand	Hamilton	20-Feb-07
IVA Richards	181	125	16	7	West Indies	v Sri Lanka	Karachi	13-Oct-87
H Masakadza	178*	167	17	4	Zimbabwe	v Kenya	Harare	18-Oct-09
PR Stirling	177	134	21	5	Ireland	v Canada	Toronto	7-Sep-10
N Kapil Dev	175*	138	16	6	India	v Zimbabwe	Tunbridge Wells	18-Jun-83
HH Gibbs	175	111	21	7	South Africa	v Australia	Johannesburg	12-Mar-06
SR Tendulkar	175	141	19	4	India	v Australia	Hyderabad (Deccan)	5-Nov-09
V Sehwag	175	140	14	5	India	v Bangladesh	Dhaka	19-Feb-11
ME Waugh	173	148	16	3	Australia	v West Indies	Melbourne	9-Feb-01
CB Wishart	172*	151	18	3	Zimbabwe	v Namibia	Harare	10-Feb-03
AC Gilchrist	172	126	13	3	Australia	v Zimbabwe	Hobart	16-Jan-04
L Vincent	172	120	16	9	New Zealand	v Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	24-Aug-05
GM Turner	171*	201	16	2	New Zealand	v East Africa	Birmingham	7-Jun-75
DJ Callaghan	169*	143	19	4	South Africa	v New Zealand	Centurion	11-Dec-94
BC Lara	169	129	15	4	West Indies	v Sri Lanka	Sharjah	16-Oct-95
RA Smith	167*	163	17	3	England	v Australia	Birmingham	21-May-93
BB McCullum	166	135	12	10	New Zealand	v Ireland	Aberdeen	1-Jul-08
RT Ponting	164	105	13	9	Australia	v South Africa	Johannesburg	12-Mar-06
SR Tendulkar	163*	133	16	5	India	v New Zealand	Christchurch	8-Mar-09
DA Warner	163	157	13	2	Australia	v Sri Lanka	Brisbane	4-Mar-12
SR Watson	161*	150	12	4	Australia	v England	Melbourne	16-Jan-11
AC Hudson	161	132	13	4	South Africa	v Netherlands	Rawalpindi	5-Mar-96
JAH Marshall	161	141	11	4	New Zealand	v Ireland	Aberdeen	1-Jul-08
TM Dilshan	160*	165	11	3	Sri Lanka	v India	Hobart	28-Feb-12
Imran Nazir	160	121	14	8	Pakistan	v Zimbabwe	Kingston	21-Mar-07
TM Dilshan	160	124	20	3	Sri Lanka	v India	Rajkot	15-Dec-09
D Mongia	159*	147	17	1	India	v Zimbabwe	Guwahati	19-Mar-02
DI Gower	158	118	18	4	England	v New Zealand	Brisbane	15-Jan-83
ML Hayden	158	143	14	4	Australia	v West Indies	North Sound	27-Mar-07
AJ Strauss	158	145	18	1	England	v India	Bangalore	27-Feb-11
XM Marshall	157*	118	11	12	West Indies	v Canada	King City (NW)	22-Aug-08
ST Jayasuriya	157	104	24	1	Sri Lanka	v Netherlands	Amstelveen	4-Jul-06
BC Lara	156	138	12	5	West Indies	v Pakistan	Adelaide	28-Jan-05
A Symonds	156	127	12	8	Australia	v New Zealand	Wellington	7-Dec-05
H Masakadza	156	151	11	6	Zimbabwe	v Kenya	Harare	12-Oct-09
AC Gilchrist	154	129	14	4	Australia	v Sri Lanka	Melbourne	7-Feb-99
Tamim Iqbal	154	138	7	6	Bangladesh	v Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	16-Aug-09
AJ Strauss	154	140	16	5	England	v Bangladesh	Birmingham	12-Jul-10
IVA Richards	153*	130	16	1	West Indies	v Australia	Melbourne	9-Dec-79
M Azharuddin	153*	150	17	1	India	v Zimbabwe	Cuttack	9-Apr-98
SC Ganguly	153*	150	18	3	India	v New Zealand	Gwalior	11-Nov-99
CH Gayle	153*	160	19	2	West Indies	v Zimbabwe	Bulawayo	22-Nov-03
BC Lara	153	143	21	0	West Indies	v Pakistan	Sharjah	5-Nov-93
R Dravid	153	153	15	2	India	v New Zealand	Hyderabad (Deccan)	8-Nov-99
HH Gibbs	153	131	17	3	South Africa	v Bangladesh	Potchefstroom	3-Oct-02
DL Haynes	152*	126	12	6	West Indies	v India	Georgetown	21-Mar-89
CH Gayle	152*	153	12	3	West Indies	v South Africa	Johannesburg	4-Feb-04
CH Gayle	152	150	17	1	West Indies	v Kenya	Nairobi	15-Aug-01
SR Tendulkar	152	151	18	0	India	v Namibia	Pietermaritzburg	23-Feb-03
AJ Strauss	152	128	19	0	England	v Bangladesh	Nottingham	21-Jun-05
ST Jayasuriya	152	99	20	4	Sri Lanka	v England	Leeds	1-Jul-06
ST Jayasuriya	151*	120	17	4	Sri Lanka	v India	Mumbai	17-May-97
A Symonds	151	127	13	3	Australia	v Sri Lanka	Sydney	12-Feb-06
G Gambhir	150*	137	14	0	India	v Sri Lanka	Kolkata	24-Dec-09
JP Duminy	150*	122	5	8	South Africa	v Netherlands	Amstelveen	31-May-13
S Chanderpaul	150	136	20	0	West Indies	v South Africa	East London	24-Jan-99
G Gambhir	150	147	14	1	India	v Sri Lanka	Colombo (RPS)	5-Feb-09
HM Amla	150	124	16	0	South Africa	v England	Southampton	28-Aug-12