January 6 down the years

Kapil swings in

An all-time great is born

Kapil Dev lifts the 1983 World Cup  •  Getty Images

Kapil Dev lifts the 1983 World Cup  •  Getty Images

1959
India's greatest allrounder is born. Kapil Dev is still the only player to score 4000 runs and take 400 wickets in Test cricket. His 5248 runs included eight centuries, his 434 wickets were a world record at the time, and he captained India when they won the 1983 World Cup. Kapil averaged over 40 with the bat against England and 25 with the ball against Australia. Highlights included a rollicking 84 and 11 wickets in a big win against Asif Iqbal's Pakistan team in Madras in 1980, which sealed the series for India; 318 runs and 22 wickets against England - Botham, Gatting, Gooch, Gower, Willis and all - in 1981-82; 25 wickets against Australia in the series there in 1991-92; and 129 in an innings against South Africa in Port Elizabeth where the rest of the India side made 86 between them. If Kapil hadn't been dropped for one Test against England in 1984-85 (a disciplinary measure after an attacking stroke at the wrong time), his Test career would have consisted of 132 consecutive matches.
2008
A record-equalling 16th straight Test win for Australia was overshadowed by the row that erupted over the allegation that Harbhajan Singh had racially abused Andrew Symonds during the Sydney Test. Match referee Mike Procter suspended Harbhajan for three Tests but it was reduced to a 50% match-fee fine on appeal, after threats to boycott the tour emerged from the Indian camp. India were also unhappy with several umpiring decisions in the Test: first Symonds, who later admitted to edging a ball when on 30, was not given out by Steve Bucknor, and went on to make an unbeaten 162; Michael Clarke refused to walk when caught at second slip and later claimed a disputed catch off Sourav Ganguly, which umpire Mark Benson accepted as legitimate based on a pre-series agreement between the captains that the fielder's word would be taken. In the end, on the BCCI's insistence, the ICC removed Bucknor from the third Test in Perth.
2004
Steve Waugh played his final Test, at his home ground, the SCG. India and Sachin Tendulkar nearly stole his thunder before he came out in the fourth innings to score 80 to draw the Test and the series. Tendulkar, whose previous scores in the series had been 0, 1, 37, 0 and 44, made 241, his highest score at the time. VVS Laxman made his second century of the series, and the two added 353 - the highest fourth-wicket stand for India - and India got to 705 for 7, at the time their highest total ever. They did not enforce the follow-on, and on the final day, when it was more or less evident the game was headed for a draw, the Waugh farewell party, which had begun in Brisbane, swung into action. At the end of the game Waugh was carried around the ground by his team-mates. Wisden wrote: "No one had ever left the cricketing stage like this; no one had dared."
1994
In one of the most dramatic finishes to any Test match, Australia made 111, the dreaded Nelson, to lose the Sydney Test to South Africa by an excruciating five runs. Ali Bacher, quoted in Wisden, called it "our finest achievement ever". Fanie de Villiers' 6 for 43 made it possible, as he nailed Australia's top four. It's a match often remembered for Damien Martyn's injudicious waft to cover - he didn't play another Test for over six years.
2024
A fairy-tale finish for David Warner, who took Australia home with 57 not out in a chase of 130 against Pakistan in his last Test, his 112th. It was the seventh time Australia had whitewashed Pakistan in Test series, extending back to 1972. And it was despite an outstanding all-round performance by fast bowler Aamer Jamal, who made 88 in the first innings and then took six wickets to give Pakistan a small lead. After that, the visitors played true to type, collapsing for 115, giving Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon seven wickets for 52 runs. Australia captain Pat Cummins, who finished with 19 wickets in the three Tests, was Player of the Series.
2020
Australia ran roughshod over New Zealand for the third Test in a row to complete a 3-0 clean sweep. New Zealand went into the game hobbling, without Trent Boult, who had broken his hand, and Kane Williamson, Henry Nicholls and Mitchell Santner, all laid low by the flu. There was little cheer for them in the game too, except perhaps for Ross Taylor becoming the most prolific New Zealand Test batter. For Australia, Marnus Labuschagne topped his golden summer off with the perfect cherry: 215 and 52, which took his average for his most recent five matches to over 112, and Nathan Lyon took a ten-wicket bag, his third.
2023
It was very nearly three defeats in three home series in a row for Pakistan, who drew by the skin of their teeth in the second Test against New Zealand in Karachi. When the home side were 80 for 5 in their chase of 319 in the fourth innings, it seemed like New Zealand would do as England and Australia did before them in 2022 and take the series off Pakistan at home. Then Sarfaraz Ahmed, back in the side after nearly four years out, produced a gritted-teeth 118, putting up hefty partnerships with Saud Shakeel and Agha Salman, and it looked like Pakistan would pull off an unlikely win. In the end the last two batters kept New Zealand, all of whose fielders were clustered around the bat with the light fading and only slow bowlers on, at bay in a nail-biting finish.
2010
Another dramatic finish featuring Australia. They completed a nerve-shredding 36-run victory over an exasperating Pakistan side in Sydney to become just the sixth team in Test history to win after trailing by 200-plus on the first innings. After Mohammad Asif took six, sending Australia crashing to 127 all out, Pakistan piled up 333. Michael Hussey brought Australia back into the game with an unbeaten 134, putting on 123 with Peter Siddle for the ninth wicket, to set Pakistan 176 to get in over a day and a half. Pakistan lost six wickets in reaching 103 but their newest batting hope, Umar Akmal, was still around. When he fell, trying to go over the infield, it was all over. Nathan Hauritz, the offspinner Pakistan had targeted though the summer, took 5 for 53.
2021
It's not often you make nearly 300 in your first innings and go on to lose by an innings and 176 runs - the fate that befell Pakistan when New Zealand thumped them in Christchurch, taking the series 2-0 and going to the top of the ICC Test rankings. Newbie Kyle Jamieson mercilessly probed away with a testing length and bounce to finish with 11 for 117, but the Man of the Match was Kane Williamson, whose 238 came in a stand of 369 (New Zealand's third-highest partnership ever) with Henry Nicholls. In the face of a mountainous 659 for 6 declared, a spent Pakistan folded for 186 against Jamieson and Boult.
2006
One more Sydney highlight. Ricky Ponting became the first man to score centuries in both innings of his 100th Test match to set up a stunning final-day victory, following a brave declaration by Graeme Smith. Ponting's first-innings 120 was a rescue effort as Australia fell to 54 for 3 in reply to South Africa's 451. He passed 8000 Test runs during the innings, virtually flawless in his shot-making and placement. The second century (an unbeaten 143 off 159 balls) turned a potentially tight chase of 287 from 76 overs into a no-contest and Australia won by nearly 16 overs to spare.
1977
Despite the final day of the second Test between England and India in Calcutta starting with India needing 21 runs to avoid an innings defeat and only three wickets remaining, a near-capacity crowd, estimated at around 90,000, turned up to watch. Wisden reported that "ecstatic scenes were witnessed when India avoided an innings defeat", but the end came soon afterwards as England wrapped-up a ten-wicket win.
2004
A dazzling debut hundred on this day for West Indies' Dwayne Smith against South Africa at Newlands. Smith, who was only 20 at the time, came to the crease with his side wanting an improbable 447 to win, and was prepared to play his shots from the start. He reached his century with a crunching cover drive. It had taken 93 balls, with 15 fours and two sixes. West Indies drew the Test.
1948
Birth of Dayle Hadlee, whose achievements in Test cricket (71 wickets at 33.64) didn't match those of his famous brother Sir Richard (431 at 22.29) but they might have come closer if Dayle hadn't lost part of a toe when he ran over his own foot with a lawnmower. His father, Walter, and his brother Barry also played for New Zealand.
2013
Australia whitewashed an injury-hit Sri Lanka 3-0, which may have taken the bite off losing at home to South Africa. It capped an incredible year for captain Michael Clarke, who scored three double-centuries, one triple, and notched up 1706 runs at nearly 90.
1930
Batting for New South Wales against Queensland in Sydney, Don Bradman hit a megalithic 452, the highest score in first-class cricket before Hanif Mohammad's 499 in 1958-59, and the highest not-out score before Brian Lara's 501 in 1994. He was just 21.
1984
Three giants from Oz bowed out. For Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, the Sydney Test against Pakistan included their last day in Test cricket. Chappell made 7110 runs and 24 hundreds. He also held a record 122 catches, including seven in one match, while Lillee finished on 355 wickets and Marsh on 355 dismissals as well - all of these Test records at the time. Ninety-five of those Marsh and Lillee ones featured both those players: c Marsh b Lillee is the most frequent dismissal in Test history.
1947
That great fast bowler Ray Lindwall (228 Test wickets at 23.03) was no rabbit with the bat. Against England in Melbourne, he hit the first of his two Test hundreds; the second fifty came in only 37 minutes.
1891
Another Australian fast bowling legend was born. Ted McDonald's partnership with big Jack Gregory scared the wits out of a war-torn England in 1921. Light on his feet but fearsomely fast, McDonald played in only 11 Tests before joining Lancashire, whom he helped to the County Championship four times, including three in a row. He was killed in a bizarre accident, hit by a passing car after surviving a crash in his own.
1935
Birth of yet another Australian pace merchant, but not quite in the same category. When England lost the 1958-59 series down under, they muttered darkly about the bowling action of left-arm seamer Ian Meckiff. Nothing was done about it until the Brisbane Test against South Africa in 1963-64, when he was called for throwing four times in his only over and immediately retired from all levels of cricket. He'd taken a total of 45 Test wickets - but at a cost.
2015
West Indies managed to send a full-strength side to South Africa just two months after their players pulled out of an India tour over a contracts dispute, but that didn't prevent them from losing 2-0 in the Test series. In South Africa's innings victory in Centurion, Hashim Amla made a double-hundred, while AB de Villers and debutant Stiaan van Zyl scored centuries, and Dale Steyn took 6 for 34. De Villiers' 148 in Cape Town gave South Africa an eight-wicket win. West Indies' only hundreds - by Kraigg Brathwaite and Marlon Samuels - came in the rain-interrupted draw in Port Elizabeth.
Other birthdays
1931 Graeme Hole (Australia)
1965 RP Singh (India)
1965 Mike Allingham (Scotland)
1966 Shahid Saeed (Pakistan)
1973 Sairaj Bahutule (India)
1974 Ali Hussain Rizvi (Pakistan)
1979 Clea Smith (Australia)