World record defeat in first-class cricket

Mumbai beat Uttarakhand by 725 runs in the Ranji quarter-final which concluded today:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/ranji-trophy-2021-22-2022-1280196/mumbai-vs-uttarakhand-2nd-quarter-final-1313304/live-cricket-score

This is the highest margin of defeat by runs in all first-class matches, surpassing the 685 runs margin for NSW v Qld in 1929-30 at Sydney. The existing records can be seen here:

Note that the 675-run margin for England vs Aus in 1928-29 at Brisbane is next on the list.

It can be seen that the Mumbai team included only two (fringe) international players in Prithvi Shaw and Dhawal Kulkarni. The main scorers and wicket-takers are relatively unknown.

In fact, the cricket grounds at Alur are situated at a rather remote part of greater Bengaluru, near Chikkabanavara:

200 or more in last first-class match

These are the players who scored 200 or more in their last first-class match in the 2017 season or earlier.

# = Test player

Arranged in order of scores.

313* SS Agarwal 2013

241* AH Bakewell # 1936

220 NF Mitchell 1926-27

217 RC Fredericks # 1982-83

207 NF Callaway 1914-15 (Only f-c match and innings)

207 IJ Siedle # 1936-37

206 PA de Silva # 2002 (In a Test).

203* ND McKenzie # 2014-15

200* AC MacLaren # 1922-23

200* Moin Khan # 2005-06

Main reference: https://stats.acscricket.com/Records/First_Class/Overall/Batting/Hundred_in_Last_Match.html

More about SS Agarwal:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/454685.html

and the match in which he scored his farewell century:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/18121/scorecard/601764/cambridge-university-vs-oxford-university-varsity-match-university-match-2013

While he played all his first-class cricket in England, he had earlier studied at the Doon School in Dehradun (the class of 2009).

Nawaz Sharif’s cricketing career

As this is being written, it appears likely that Imran Khan Niazi will be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. While he may be described as one of Pakistan’s finest cricket captains, it is an open question whether he will be successful as a PM.

His adversary Nawaz Sharif was a cricketer of a sort-though he played only one first-class match in which he scored a duck and did not bowl or take a catch. The summary of his career is here:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan/content/player/42259.html

If one wants to find out details of the match he played in, it is not in Cricinfo but can be found in other sources such as www.cricketarchive.com

I am giving the link for the scorecard here, though it will probably not be visible unless you have paid the subscription for access to the site.

http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/33/33876.html

This match was between Railways (NS’s team) and PIA “B” at Karachi (Gymkhana Ground) on 10/11 Dec 1973. Unusually for a 4-day match, it was concluded in two days when Railways won by an innings and 68 runs. This was a quarter-final of the BCCP Patron’s Trophy. Railways went on to win the trophy, defeating PIA “A” in the final.

A brief summary of the match in question:

Railways 238

PIA “B”  51 and (fo) 119.

As mentioned above, Nawaz Sharif  scored a duck. He was the No 2 batsman, and did not bowl or take a catch.

His team-mates included two international players in Arif Butt and Mohammed Nazir who each played in a few Tests. The latter took 11 wickets in the match.

The PIA team did not have any international players. There was a Saeed Ahmed who batted at No 11, though he is not the one you are thinking of.

NS also appears in one “miscellaneous” one-day match which does not have List A status. This match was played between Lahore Gymkhana and England at Bagh-e-Jinnah, Lahore on 7 Oct 1987, as one of the warm-up matches for the Reliance World Cup.

This stadium was earlier known as Lawrence Gardens and had hosted a few Tests in 1955-59.

http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/201/201432.html

In this match England won by 129 runs, with NS batting at No 2 and bowled by DeFreitas for 1.

(Thanks to Pradeep Ramarathman for remembering the second match).

He also participated in non-serious matches later on, such as one in a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in the early 90s. In one of these matches he hit a few sixes.

Perhaps the high point of his cricket career occurred when he was PM, when Pakistan’s team captained by Imran Khan won the World Cup in 1992:

 

More about Samridh Agarwal

This is a continuation of the earlier blogpost about Samridh Agarwal and his cricketing career. Here I will look a little deeper into some of the points mentioned earlier.

Samridh-ext3

If you prefer a jpg file:

Here we can see that 6 of the 9 players played in Tests, i.e. all but Samridh, N. F. Mitchell and N. F. Callaway. Some captained their country. The only example in a Test match is that of Aravinda da Silva, who was captaining Sri Lanka on that occasion.

While N. F. Mitchell had an unremarkable career other than his double century in his last match, the case of N. F. Callaway is quite peculiar. He played in precisely one f-c match, and only one innings in which he scored 207. He was thus the only player in all first-class cricket to score a double century in his only match. There are many who scored a double century on f-c debut and went on to long careers, including G. R. Viswanath and A. A.  Muzumdar.

Even if you had not heard of Mr Callaway earlier, you could probably guess what happened next if you saw the date. Soon after this match he joined the Australian army-and in 1917 became one of the victims of the Great War. More details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Callaway

He was not related to S. T. Callaway who had earlier played a few Tests for Australia.

That leaves us with Samridh Agarwal, who we hope will soon be playing major cricket again and will be rid of this unwanted record.

At this stage you may ask how this state of affairs came about. It is explained here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Agarwal

The key point is : “He was unable to continue playing in England or be contracted by Surrey as he did not qualify as per ECB rules to play for a county as a domestic player in the English county matches”. More of this in a moment.

In England, the rules can be seen in this Cricinfo article from 2012:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/563328.html

The key points can be seen in the first two paragraphs. Basically if you became a resident of the UK before your 18th birthday, you need to spend 4 years before you are eligible to play for England. If you arrived after 18, it is 7 years.

And the counties might not be interested in you if you are not eligible to play for the country. Presumably this would not matter so much to 2nd XI or league cricket (where Samridh is now playing). It is not immediately clear whether his stay as a school and college student counts as residency or not. And it is not clear whether the rules consider him as arriving before or after he turned 18 (which was in July 2008).

If you are still with me, you may find the rest of the article and comments section of interest. As it often happens, the comments are more insightful than the original articles.

However, I suspect that major cricket has not seen the last of him.