The game of cricket, for some, might be a very predictable sport. Usually, the team which plays the better game in 100-overs or five days ends up in the winning side.
However, the game has also witnessed cases of mind-boggling consequences, which remains unfathomable. Today, let’s have a look at some of them.
1. 183 and Indian captaincy
Future leaders of the Indian cricket team have had an uncanny relationship with the score of 183. In the 1999 World Cup game against Sri Lanka, Sourav Ganguly smashed his career-best 183, and then went on to captain the Indian team in 2000.
Then, MS Dhoni ripped apart the Lankan bowling lineup in the 2005 ODI game in Jaipur, where he struck 183 and took over the captaincy in 2007.
Cut to 2012, in an Asia Cup game against Pakistan, Virat Kohli notched up his career-best score of 183. Later, Kohli went on to lead the Indian team in all formats
2. Double-tons of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Rohit Sharma
Sachin Tendulkar became the first cricketer to post a double ton in 2010 against South Africa at Nagpur.
Soon after, the floodgates of double centuries opened up for the Indian team with Virender Sehwag‘s 219 against West Indies in 2011 at Indore and Rohit Sharma’s 209 against Australia at Bengaluru.
In all the three matches, interestingly, India won the games by a margin of 153 runs.
3. The ‘Nelson’ Test match
The freak Cape Town Test match between Australia and South Africa witnessed one of the most unbelievable instances of coincidences. At 11.11 am on Day 3 of the Test match, dated 11.11. 11., South Africa needed 111 runs to win.
The maverick game also saw all four innings of the Test match played on the same day, which is unusual in the game of cricket.
4. Jacques Kallis = Sachin Tendulkar + Zaheer Khan
One of the giants of the game, Kallis, is arguably the best all-rounder produced by the game, in terms of quality, tally and longevity.
During one of the Test matches between South Africa, an unfathomable data prompted on the screen regarding the stat of Kallis in comparison with Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan, in their respective departments.
In Test matches, Kallis, then, scored over 12,000 runs and picked up 271 wickets, which was almost equivalent to Sachin’s (15,183) and Zaheer’s (273) tally, in terms of runs and wickets, respectively.
5. Sachin Tendulkar = Alastair Cook + Michael Clarke
When former England opener Alastair Cook appeared in his 100th Test match, yet another intriguing statistic appeared on the screen in comparison with Sachin and Michael Clarke.
After 100 Test matches, both Clarke and Cook’s tally aggregated to that of Sachin’s in terms of runs and centuries.
