And not a wicket fell all day...
Anant Gaundalkar
For cricket fans it is a treat to watch the scoreboard ticking
at a run-a-minute with over 300 runs scored in a day's play
and not one wicket falling all day.
In the contemporary era, this
happens but rarely. The latest instance occurred on the third
day of the opening Test between Australia and South Africa at
the Wanderers, Johannesburg, which the Aussies won by a huge margin.
The Australian middle-order pair of Steve Waugh and Greg Blewett
took the overnight score from 191 for four to 479 for four at
the end of the day, adding 288 runs without being separated.
In Test history, spanning over 120 years, there have been only
11 such instances when two batsmen have occupied the crease throughout
a day . Also, there have been two other occasions when two pairs of batsmen from different
countries stayed at the wicket without losing a single wicket,
after the first country had declared their innings.
India has the honor of accomplishing this feat
twice, the more noteworthy being the first day unbroken stand
of 234 by Vinod Mankad and Pankaj Roy at Madras in 1955-56
which ultimately resulted in a world record opening wicket stand
of 413.
Following are the complete details of instances when two batsmen occupied
the crease throughout a day in Test cricket:
Runs Country Batsmen Oppenents Venue Season
283 England J B Hobbs Australia Melbourne 1924-25
(283-0) & H Sutcliffe
307 W.Indies D St E Alkinson Australia Bridgetown 1954-55
(187-6 & C C Depiza
to 494-6)
234 India M H Mankad New Zealand Madras 1955-56
(234-0) & Pankaj Roy
357 W.Indies C G Hunte Pakistan Kingston 1957-58
(147-1 & G St A Sobers
to 504-1)
207 W.Indies G St A Sobers England Bridgetown 1959-60
(279-3 & F M M Worrell
to 486-3)
263 Australia W M Lawry West Indies Bridgetown 1964-65
(263-0) & R B Simpson
217 India G R Viswanath England Madras 1981-82
(178-2 & Yashpal Sharma
to 395-2)
240 Sri Lanka A Gurusinghe Pakistan Colombo 1985-86
(83-3 & A Ranatunga
to 323-3)
192 New Zealand J J Crowe Sri Lanka Colombo 1986-87
(214-5 & R J Hadlee
to 406-5)
301 Australia G R Marsh England Notingham 1989
(301-0) & M Taylor
288 Australia S Waugh South Africa Johannesburg 1996-97
(191-4 & G Blewett
to 479-4)
Following are instances of two pairs of batsmen from
different countries staying at the crease after
the first country declared their innings:
218 West Indies (310-7 to 365 -7d) A I Kalicharran & T M Findlay New Zealand
(163-0) Georgetown 1971-72 G M Turner & J W Jarris
306 India (70-1 to 361-1d) S M Gavaskar & D B Vengsarkar West Indies
(15-0) Calcutta 1978-79 A B Williams & S F A F Bacchus
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