Cricket, we all know, relies on numbers more than any other sport. That’s because of the involvement of so many players who have different jobs to do, unlike other team sports like football. The result is a barrage of stats.
And cricket lovers really like that, don’t we? One can say that to be a cricket fan you need to have some affection for numbers because otherwise, it is not going to work. Now, yes, stats can be intimidating for some but on certain occasions, they flow. They find a pattern that is beautiful. In simple terms, these are coincidences and here we look at a few of them.
A Twitter user named S I D D H A R T H, collated a series of such coincidences in a thread (which must have taken time, so big props to the guy). Here you go.
1. Sachin Tendulkar (200 not out), Virender Sehwag (219) and Rohit Sharma (209) were the first Indians to score a double century in ODIs. The unique aspect about each of these innings is that India won the match by 153 runs on each of these three occasions.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
2. Tendulkar completed 1000 international runs against Australia in 1999 in the 19th over of the test match in Melbourne. Kohli achieved the same feat in the 19th over of a test match against Australia in Melbourne. Both were 26 years old and used MRF bats when they did so.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
3. At the end of 100 tests, Michal Clarke had 7966 test runs and 26 hundreds and Alastair Cook had 7955 runs and 25 runs. If we add them vertically, we get 200 tests, 15,921 runs and 51 test hundreds. These numbers are coincidently, the actual test numbers of Sachin Tendulkar. pic.twitter.com/TOqU2Pnjry
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
4. Sachin Tendulkar scored 200 not out on February 24, 2010, which was the first ever double hundred in Odi’s. Exactly 5 years later on February 24, 2015 Chris Gayle scored the first ever Double hundred in World Cup.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
5. Dhoni’s first test and ODI hundred both came in his 5th match, both were scores of 148 and both were scored against Pakistan.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
6. Former England captain Tony Greig took 4/53 in the second innings on his debut Test, against Australia in 1972 and his team won by 89 runs. 10 years later, his younger brother Ian Greig made his Test debut, against Pakistan. He also took 4/53 in the first innings.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
7. In the 1978 First class season, former England cricketer David Steele scored 1182 runs in 31 completed innings and finished with an average 38.12. His younger brother John also scored exactly 1182 runs in 31 completed innings, to finish at an average of 38.12.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
8. Australia’s Dennis Lillee took his 300th test wicket on his 56th match on November 27, 1981, and Ashwin broke the record on November 27, 2017, in his 54th test match.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
9. In an ODI involving Kenya and Bangladesh in 2006, Hitesh Modi, the Kenyan batsman was ruled out LBW by his father Subhash Modi.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
10. Dilip Vengsarkar, Kris Srikkanth and Sandeep Patil were in the 1983 World Cup winning squad. They were not done yet. Decades later, as chief selectors, Vengsarkar won the 2007 T20 World Cup, Srikkanth won the 2011 ODI World Cup and Patil won the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy!
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
11. Sourav Ganguly scored 183 against Kenya in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. He became India’s captain soon after. Dhoni scored 183 against Pakistan in 2005, he also became India’s captain soon after. Kohli, too scored 183 against Pakistan in 2012, and became India’s captain later.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
12. The batting styles of Rahul Dravid and Cheteshwar Pujara are quite similar, both are solid and mentally strong. Their numbers have some degree of parallelism too. Both reached 3000 test runs in 67 test innings, 4000 runs in 87 test innings and 5000 test runs in 108 innings. pic.twitter.com/leS3Ha8UAI
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
13. Simon Katich and his teammate Michael Hussey had exactly 3981 runs in their first 52 Tests.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
14. There is a common link that connects Sachin Tendulkar’s top 3 ODI scores of 175, 186* and 200. In all these matches, India’s Shavir Tarapore was the umpire.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
15. Both Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli brought up their 58th international century against England. And, their scores were an exact 103.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
16. Bangladesh fast bowler Abul Hasan made a fairytale start with the bat as he went on to score 113 on Test debut against West Indies in Khulna in December 2012. When it came to bowling, the debutant finished with dismal figures of 0 for 113, conceding exactly as much he scored.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
17. In November 2011, for the first time in more than 2000 Test matches, both captains had the same surname – Brendan Taylor for Zimbabwe, and Ross Taylor for New Zealand.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
18. When Sachin Tendulkar came out to bat for the last time, his runs column reflected 15,847 runs. Coincidently India became independent on 15-8-(19)47. pic.twitter.com/hxBleLGlli
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
19. Sachin Tendulkar ‘s 19th test century is against Sri Lanka and 5th double hundred is also against Sri Lanka.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
Virat Kohli’s 19th test century is against Sri Lanka and 5th double hundred is against Sri Lanka.
Thank you for reading. Like and Rt if you enjoyed 🙏.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
Follow @breakingbadass for more cricket related content.
20. Three Indian cricketers have batted on all 5 days in a test match and coincidence is that these test matches were in Kolkata every time.
— S I D D H A R T H (@breakingbadass) March 21, 2021
Amazing stuff, right?
