Top 10 unbeatable cricket record
1. Don Bradman's 99.94 Test Career Batting Average
In 80
Test cricket innings, Don
Bradman -- aka 'The Don' -- scored his runs at an average of 99.94. The
next guy on the Test batting averages list managed a tick over 60. We can
do all sorts of mathematical comparisons with these numbers but they would all
show one thing: Bradman is the best batsman the game has seen. That Test
average of 99.94 is a number you need to know, a kind of shorthand for
Bradman's exceptional talent. Just for good measure, his overall first-class
average of 95.14 is unlikely to be beaten either.
2. Muttiah Muralitharan's 1334 International Wickets
Murali was only 20 when he first bowled for
Sri
Lanka. He turned a few heads with his unusual style, not to mentioned
sparked a few controversies, but it soon proved
effective as he baffled batsmen around the world. Nearly 20 years later, he had
800 Test wickets and 534 one-day international wickets -- both records. For
someone to challenge Muralitharan's numbers, they would have to be capable of
bowling for long periods of a match, remain injury-free for two decades, and be
consistently amongst the best bowlers on the international circuit. It's
conceivable, but they will have to be as freakish as Murali.
3. Jack Hobbs' 61,760 First-Class Runs
The game we call cricket simply is not the same game that Sir Jack Hobbs
dominated in the early part of the 20th Century. Matches were longer,
conditions tougher, and international schedules were limited (of Hobbs' 834
first-class matches, only 61 were Tests). It was a game for gentlemen of
leisure, not an intensely physical sport played by professional athletes. It's
fitting, then, that Hobbs was by all accounts a true gentleman, and his
favourite pastime was to score copious amounts of runs. The game has moved on
from Hobbs' era, making his 61,760 first-class runs a relic rather than a
realistic target, but he will always be remembered as a legend of the game.
4. Jim Laker's Test Match Bowling Figures of 19/90
That shorthand stands for 19 wickets, 90 runs. In other words, out of 20
Australian wickets to fall at Old Trafford in 1956, England off-spinner Jim
Laker missed only one. Ten wickets in a Test match is considered an exceptional
achievement; 19 victims is absurd. By comparison, Laker's England colleagues
sent down 123 overs between them and only managed one wicket. Ten wickets in a
Test innings has been repeated -
Anil
Kumble did it 1999 - but 19 in a match? We'll almost certainly never see it
again.
5. Wilfred Rhodes' 4204 First-Class Wickets
Like Jack Hobbs, Wilfred Rhodes played in a less strenuous era, such that it
was possible for him to bowl his slow left-arm spin for England well into his
fifties. 4204 career wickets is a testament to his longevity in the game,
although you don't set this kind of record without being competitive. To be
sure that Rhodes' record will never be topped, you need only look at Muttiah
Muralitharan, who took roughly half as many wickets in a twenty-year career
6. Australia's 16 Consecutive Test Wins
It isn't entirely surprising that
Australia
were capable of this feat during their recent golden years. They managed 16
consecutive Test match wins twice, first between 1999-2001 under Steve Waugh
and second between 2005-2008 under Ricky Ponting, and nobody would have doubted
that they had the talent and desire to do it. However, the real problem with
beating this record is the weather. Cricket relies on sunny skies more than
most other sports, and the conditions in which Test cricket can be played are
strict. A team even playing 16 consecutive Tests without weather interruption
is unusual, let alone winning them all. If it ever happens again, you can chalk
it up to luck just as much as to skill.
7. Chaminda Vaas' One Day International Bowling Figures of 8/19
left-arm pacer Chaminda Vaas scalped the best one day international bowling
figures of all time
in 2001. Vaas is still the only player to take eight wickets in
a one day international. It's possible, of course, that someone in the future
could take nine or even ten, but to do so would be miraculous given the
batsman-centric nature of ODIs.
8. Graham Gooch's 456 Runs in a Test Match
In 1990, England captain Graham Gooch hit the highest peak of his prolific
career by scoring 456 runs in
one
Test against India. His 333 in the first innings would have given him glory
enough, but he then went out and smashed a quick 123 in the second innings as
England chased a win, which they duly managed. Super-long innings are becoming
rarer and rarer in Test cricket as the influence of Twenty20 extends to the
longest form of the game, so it's hard to see Gooch's mark being surpassed.
9. Phil Simmons' Economy Rate of 0.3 in a One Day International
If you bowl out ten overs in a one-dayer, the yardstick for a good
performance to finish with an economy rate of less than four runs per over
(that's under 40 runs conceded).
Against Pakistan in 1992, the West Indies' Phil Simmons gave
away just
three runs for an economy rate of 0.3 runs per over. ODIs
have become much more attack-minded since, so Simmons -- who was primarily a
batsman -- can be confident that his run rate won't be bettered.
10. Chris Gayle's Twenty20 Hundred Off 30 Balls
In the early days of Twenty20 cricket, back in 2004, Australian Andrew
Symonds bludgeoned a hundred for the English county team Kent off just 34
balls. That record stood until IPL 2013, in which
Chris
Gayle's 175 not out for Royal Challengers Bangalore came off an incredible
30 balls. It was the fastest hundred in the history of top-level cricket and
also beat Brendon McCullum's seemingly unbeatable Twenty20 high score of 158
not out. 200 by a single player in a Twenty20 match now looks achievable, but a
century off 30 balls? That's purely astonishing.
