26 SEPTEMBER
Born on this day were:
Charles ‘Buck’ Llewellyn (1876-1964), South African all-rounder who in 1901 was the first man to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets for Hampshire in an English first-class season;
Vijay Manjrekar (1931-83), one of India’s greatest batsmen who made seven hundreds in 55 Tests at an average of 39.12 (He was the father of Sanjay, who also played for India with success); and
Ian Chappell (1943-), Australian batsman and captain who was the oldest of the three Chappell brothers and who played 75 Tests scoring 5,345 runs (at 42.42) and who is now a TV commentator.
In 1895 HE Browne took a hat-trick for Europeans against Parsees at Poona. This was the first hat-trick in a first-class match in India. Parsees won by an innings and ten runs.
In 1977 the first High Court action concerning Test cricket started in London between the ICC and TCCB on one side and the World Series Cricket and three leading players Tony Greig, John Snow and Mike Procter on the other. World Series Cricket run by Kerry Packer had signed up 35 leading cricketers, including most of the Australian team, to play a series of one-day matches in the Australian summer. As these conflicted with the established tours of the ICC, it issued an ultimatum stating that any player who appeared in unrecognized matches would be ineligible for Test cricket. The ICC and TCCB lost the case on 7 November 1977 when the court declared that the proposed ban was ‘an unreasonable restraint of trade.’
In 1995 a famous victory for Sri Lanka at Sialkot. They beat Pakistan by 144 runs in the third Test to seal their first-ever victory in a three-match series overseas. It was also Pakistan’s first home series defeat since 1980-81 and only the fourth instance – three of which had been in the previous year – of a side winning a three-Test rubber after losing the first match.
In 1999 Sunil Joshi took for 5 for 6 in an LG Cup ODI against South Africa at Nairobi. His victims were Boeta Dippenaar, Herschelle Gibbs, Hansie Cronje, Jonty Rhodes and Shaun Pollock. With South Africa routed for 117, their second-lowest ODI total, India romped home by eight wickets with more than 27 overs to spare. His remarkable figures of 10-6-6-5 were the fourth most economical in ODI history.
