Where is Barahoti?

Every couple of years we see panic in the media over the Chinese entering India at a place called Barahoti in Uttarakhand. It is often forgotten that India has borders with Tibet in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well as Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. There has been a dispute about Barahoti on record since at least 1954, in the days of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai.

Anyway, the place known as Barahoti is  (as far as I could find) an 80-sq km pasture in Chamoli district. No information about its permanent population and infrastructure seems to be available on the net. It is too obscure to have an article in Wikipedia. Anyway, you can see its location on Google Maps:

https://www.google.co.in/maps/place/Bara+Hoti/@30.7725748,79.806493,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x39a7b653779ef879:0x3640cb3bd79f5dc!8m2!3d30.833333!4d79.966667

Also this one of Chamoli district:

https://www.euttaranchal.com/maps/chamoli_map.php

The nearest town of importance seems to be Joshimath (the tehsil town) and the nearest place of any importance is the village of Malari, which you pass while going to Barahoti and beyond. The motorable road appears to end somewhere here.

The nearest permanent military outpost is at a place called Rimkhim about 10 km from the border and a few km from Barahoti.

In the 1962 was the Chinese armed forces did not bother to do anything here, presumably as their objectives in Ladakh and NEFA were more important.

These articles may be of interest:

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1665.html

http://www.firstpost.com/world/history-lesson-why-china-and-india-will-have-to-do-a-swap-743097.html

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/the-case-of-barahoti-the-first-himalyan-blunder-2/

The first article, in particular, brings out the rather laid-back conditions on the Indian side of the border. Unlike in most of the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders, no one seems to know or care just where the border is.

You may also find this of interest:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/03/19/the-northernmost-points-in-india/

 

An eclectic score card for T20I matches

This is a follow up to our studies of eclectic score cards in Tests and ODIs:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/eclectic-score-cards-for-tests/

and

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/eclectic-score-cards-for-odis/

As in the earlier studies, we list the highest scores at different batting positions in T20I matches. Remarks are given alongside.

First, the highest scores in all T20Is:

While there  are some entries from the Associates, there are none from India (as well as South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies). Next we look at the Indian scorecard:

Now we look at debutants in all T20Is:

Here, too, the Associates are well represented but there is no player from India and the West Indies.

Finally, the debutants from India:

No one has made his debut for India while batting at No 10.

Interestingly, RT Ponting’s 98* in the first ever T20I in 2005 remains the best by a No 4 as well as by a debutant.

Indian cricketers on the Lord’s honours boards (August 2021)

This is revised whenever India plays a Test at Lord’s

Here we continue our focus on Lord’s with the list of Indian batsmen and bowlers who figure on the honors boards there.

First, batting:

Some points of interest:

Mankad’s century came along with a five-for. He and Ian Botham are the only ones to score a century and take a five-for in the same match at Lord’s.

Dilip Vengsarkar is the only visiting batsman from any country to score 3 Test centuries at this venue.

Ganguly’s 131 came on his Test debut. It was the highest innings score by anyone making his Test debut at this venue, until D Conway made 200 earlier in 2021.

Agarkar made his only Test century here-all the more remarkable as his next highest score was 41. Now you know the answer to the old quiz question “What batting feat was attained by Agarkar and not by Gavaskar and Tendulkar?”

No instance from 2018.

Now we come to the bowling boards, listing all Indians who have taken 5 wickets in an innings here:

No one from 2018 or even the win at 2021. A fair cross-section of Indian bowlers over the years. Ishant Sharma now holds the record with 7-74, surpassing the record of 6-35 by Amar Singh in 1936. Mohammed Nissar’s fiver came on his Test debut which was also India’s first Test.

There is also an honors board for 10-wicket hauls, in which no Indian appears. There are some performances by English bowlers against India, notably Alec Bedser’s 11-wicket haul on his debut in 1946.

Tail piece: After the 2021 Test, England and India had played 19 Tests there. England lead 12-3 with 4 draws. India’s victories were in 1986, 2014 and 2021.

All-round feats at Lord’s

You would have heard of the honours boards at Lord’s. A summary can be seen here.

The “neutral” boards are dealt with at more length here  towards the end of the post.

Basically these boards list all instances of i) centuries ii) five wickets in an innings and iii) ten wickets in a match at this ground. Here we look at instances of all-round performances.

Only two have scored a century and taken a five-for in the same Tests. They are among the all-time greats:

Then there are others who have scored centuries and taken five-fors at Lord’s, but not necessarily in the same Test. The full list (which includes the pair listed above) is:

If you remove Mankad and Botham, you still have Allen, Miller, Illingworth, Flintoff and Broad who have scored centuries as well as five-fors at Lord’s. None have scored more than one century at this venue, though there are some instances of multiple five-fors.

There have been only three instances of centuries and ten-fors in the same Test, and all of them have occurred in Asia. We can find a few who have achieved centuries and ten-fors at Lord’s, but not in the same Test:

Incidentally Allen and Broad scored their only Test centuries at Lord’s.

Let us now look at all-round performances at Lord’s which go beyond the honours boards.

A fifty and ten wickets in the match:

Only one instance. If we “stretch” this to 50 or more runs and ten or more wickets, we get:

Miller and newcomer Woakes are added here.

And finally, 100 or more runs and five or more wickets in the match:

Additions to the original pair of Mankad and Botham (1978) are Morkel, Kapil, Botham (1984) and Mark Butcher. The earlier Morkel does not seem to be related to Albie and Morne. The instance of Botham in 1984 was the time when West Indies made 344/1 to win the match. And Butcher was an occasional bowler who took only 15 wickets in his Test career.

 

 

 

Cricketing coincidences-2

A well-known one pertains to the very first Test at Melbourne in March 1877 and the Centenary Test a hundred years later. In both cases Australia won by 45 runs.

See the scorecard of 1877:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62396.html

and of 1977:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63189.html

Although the story-lines of the two Tests are somewhat different, the end result was the same. Note that one performance in the 1877 Test remains a Test record even today.

Now here is another lesser-known one involving two brothers-Tony Greig (58 Tests) and the lesser-known Ian Greig (2 Tests). Tony had one of the best all-round debuts including 4-53. His brother also took 4-53 on debut.

Tony: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63084.html

Ian:   http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63317.html

Finally another one including two Tests, which had somewhat more similarities than the two Tests at Melbourne.

Our story begins at the India-Australia Test at Kanpur in 1959-60, which you will remember as India’s first victory over Australia:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62869.html

Jasu Patel’s figures of 9-69 and 14-124 stood as records for a long time. The first one was bettered only by Anil Kumble in 1998-99, and the second was bettered only by Narendra Hirwani in 1987-88.

Other points to note are:

1. India won by over 100 runs after conceding a first-innings lead
2. An Australian left-arm pace bowler (Davidson) took 12 wickets (5 and 7)

Almost 20 years passed. Kanpur saw 7 drawn Tests in succession, and got the reputation of being the deadest Test pitch in the world. These Tests were generally dull draws, with some highlights like GR Viswanath’s duck and century on debut in 1969-70 and India’s then highest total of 644/7 in 1978-79. Then came another Australian team in 1979-80, admittedly a rather weak team without the Packer players.

This was the result:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63243.html

There was no record-breaking bowling like that of Jasu Patel, but still

1. India won by over 100 runs after conceding a first-innings lead
2. An Australian left-arm pace bowler (Dymock) took 12 wickets (5 and 7)

Add to this the fact that both Australian bowler’s names started with a D, and there are certainly more coincidences than in the better-known Tests at Melbourne.

India and Australia have met only three times in Tests at this venue, in 1959-60, 1969-70 and 1979-80 but the 10-year cycle was broken in the next decade.