Thursday, December 09, 2004

Did you know that….

Anil Kumble’s tally of wickets (434) is much more than the total wickets taken by all Bangladesh bowlers put together (266).

Sachin Tendulkar has 33 centuries to his credit, whereas all Bangladesh cricketers, who have played Test cricket (a total of 39), have managed to aggregate only 8. Tendulkar and Dravid have together aggregated 16,798 runs in 335 innings at an average of 56.55 whereas all Bangladesh players have aggregated 11,496 runs in 685 innings at an average of 18.54.

Bangladesh have not registered a single win in 32 Tests they have played so far. Pathetic, one would imagine. But it still is not a Test record. New Zealand had to wait for 44 Tests (from 1929-30 to 1955-56) for their first Test victory. India, for the record, recorded their maiden win in only their 25th Test.

Khaled Masud captained Bangladesh in 12 matches and lost all of them! No other player is anywhere near to Masud’s ‘remarkable’ feat.

Habibul Bashar has appeared in 30 Tests for Bangladesh without ever being on the winning side. Only one player has the ‘better’ record. In all of his 42 Tests New Zealand’s Bert Sutcliffe was not in a winning side even once!

Bashar has top scored for Bangladesh 19 times in 58 completed innings – a percentage of 32.75. Only West Indian George Headley (37.50%) and Australia’s Don Bradman (34.43%) have better record than Habibul Bashar in all Test cricket.

Bangladesh remains the only team to lose their inaugural Test despite scoring 400 runs in first innings. In fact their total of 400 is the second highest by a country in its inaugural Test after Zimbabwe's 456 also against India at Harare in 1992-93.

Naimur Rahman returned the figures of 6-132 in Bangladesh’s inaugural Test (v India, Dhaka, November 2000), which are the second best by a bowler in his country's inaugural Test after Australian Tom Kendall's 7 for 55 against England at Melbourne in 1876-77. However Rahman’s figures are the best by a bowler in first innings of his country's inaugural Test.
Aminul Islam’s innings of 145 in Dhaka Test in 2000-01 is the second highest by any batsman in a country’s inaugural Test after Australian Charles Bannerman’s 165 (retired hurt) v England at Melbourne in 1886-87.

Between 2001-02 and 2003-04 Bangladesh faced defeat in 21 consecutive Tests – a world record.