Sir Donald George Bradman,nicknamed "The Don",was an Australian international cricketer,widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. His cricketing successes have been claimed by Shane Warne,among others,to make Bradman the "greatest sportsperson" in history. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is considered by some to be the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.
Danish Parabha Shankar Kaneria,is a Pakistani former cricketer who played for the Pakistan national cricket team between 2000 and 2010. A right-arm leg spinner who could bowl a googly,Kaneria played 61 Test matches for Pakistan and took 261 wickets at an average of 34.79. He was the second Hindu,after his cousin Anil Dalpat,and the seventh non-Muslim overall to represent Pakistan in international cricket.
John Geoffrey Wright is a former international cricketer who represented –and captained –New Zealand. He made his international debut in 1978 against England.
Christopher Lance Cairns is a former New Zealand cricketer and former ODI captain,who played for the New Zealand cricket team as an all-rounder. Cairns finished his Test career with a batting average of 33.53 and a bowling average of 29.40. In 2000,he was named as one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. He has appeared in ICC Cricket World Cup tournaments on 4 occasions in 1992,1996,1999 and 2003. He is regarded as one of the greatest allrounders of the game. Cairns was a member of the New Zealand team that won the 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy,the first time the country won an ICC trophy,and he had a major role in the final with 102 not out,and scored the winning run.
Scott Bernardo Styris is a New Zealand cricket commentator and former cricketer,who played all formats of the game. An allrounder,Styris played as an aggressive right-handed middle order batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler. Styris was a member of the New Zealand team that won the 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy.
Hedley Verity was a professional cricketer who played for Yorkshire and England between 1930 and 1939. A slow left-arm orthodox bowler,he took 1,956 wickets in first-class cricket at an average of 14.90 and 144 wickets in 40 Tests at an average of 24.37.
Alan Falconer Kippax was a cricketer for New South Wales (NSW) and Australia. Regarded as one of the great stylists of Australian cricket during the era between the two World Wars,Kippax overcame a late start to Test cricket to become a regular in the Australian team between the 1928–29 and 1932–33 seasons. A middle-order batsman,he toured England twice,and at domestic level was a prolific scorer and a highly considered leader of NSW for eight years. To an extent,his Test figures did not correspond with his great success for NSW and he is best remembered for a performance in domestic cricket—a world record last wicket partnership,set during a Sheffield Shield match in 1928–29. His career was curtailed by the controversial Bodyline tactics employed by England on their 1932–33 tour of Australia;Kippax wrote a book denouncing the tactics after the series concluded.
Donald Tallon was an Australian cricketer who played 21 Test matches as a wicket-keeper between 1946 and 1953. He was widely regarded by his contemporaries as Australia's finest ever wicket-keeper and one of the best in Test history,with an understated style,an ability to anticipate the flight,length and spin of the ball and an efficient stumping technique. Tallon toured England as part of Don Bradman's Invincibles of 1948 and was recognised as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1949 for his performances during that season. During his Test career,Tallon made 58 dismissals comprising 50 catches and 8 stumpings.
Charles George Macartney was an Australian cricketer who played in 35 Test matches between 1907 and 1926. He was known as "The Governor-General" in reference to his authoritative batting style and his flamboyant strokeplay,which drew comparisons with his close friend and role model Victor Trumper,regarded as one of the most elegant batsmen in cricketing history. Sir Donald Bradman—generally regarded as the greatest batsman in history—cited Macartney's dynamic batting as an inspiration in his cricket career.
Archibald Jackson,occasionally known as Archibald Alexander Jackson,was an Australian international cricketer who played eight Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1929 and 1931. A teenage prodigy,he played first grade cricket at only 15 years of age and was selected for New South Wales at 17. In 1929,aged 19,Jackson made his Test debut against England,scoring 164 runs in the first innings to become the youngest player to score a Test century.
The England cricket team toured Pakistan from October to December 2005. England were looking to maintain the form that had taken them to second place in the ICC Test Championship,and to victory in the 2005 Ashes series at home to Australia,but they suffered a sharp reversal of fortune,losing the Test series 2–0 to Pakistan. Pakistan also won the one day series by 3–2. This would be England's last tour of Pakistan until 2022.
Douglas Vivian Parson Wright was an English cricketer. A leg-spinner for Kent and England from 1932 to 1957 he took a record seven hat-tricks in first-class cricket. He played for Kent for 19 seasons and was their first professional captain from late 1953 to 1956. Don Bradman said he was the best leg-spinner to tour Australia since Sydney Barnes,and Keith Miller thought he was the best leg-spinner he had seen apart from Bill O'Reilly. He toured Australia in 1946–47 and 1950–51,but was dogged by ill-luck and was considered to be the "unluckiest bowler in the world".
Cutting a leg-break is always dangerous,and cutting Wright is a form of suicide. Why a bowler of his skill failed to get more test-match wickets always mystified me;there was of course the marked tendency to bowl no-balls,but he sent down so many good ones,and worried and beat the batsmen so often,that he should have had better results...he seemed always likely to get wickets. It is one of the toughest problems of captaincy to know when to remove a man like that from the firing-line.
Todd Duncan Astle is a former New Zealand cricketer who played for the New Zealand national cricket team. Astle began his cricket career as an opening batsman,representing New Zealand in the 2006 Under-19 Cricket World Cup,but over time playing first-class cricket for Canterbury,he morphed into a bowling all-rounder. He made his Test cricket debut for New Zealand in 2012 in Sri Lanka,but did not play another international match until 2015. He represented New Zealand in all three forms of the game,but was unable to keep a consistent place in the team in any format because of regular injury problems and competition with other spin bowlers. In January 2020,Astle retired from first-class cricket to focus on limited-overs cricket. In February 2023 he retired from all forms of professional cricket.
The English cricket team in Australia in 1946–47 was captained by Wally Hammond,with Norman Yardley as his vice-captain and Bill Edrich as the senior professional. It played as England in the 1946–47 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour. They were regarded as a sound team which was just as strong as Australia,but due to the Second World War they were an ageing side and their bowling depended heavily on Alec Bedser and Doug Wright,who were overused and exhausted as a result. Australia beat England 3-0 in a five-match series to retain the Ashes;England suffered the worst defeat in a Test series since losing 4–1 to Australia in 1924–25. Since 1881,Tests in Australia were played to finish. That rule was changed for this series,and for the first time in 65 years,a test played in Australia ended in a draw when the third test was drawn.
The Pakistan cricket team toured New Zealand in November and December 2009 for a three-match Test series.
Virender Sehwag is a former Indian cricketer who represented India from 1999 to 2013. Widely regarded as one of the most destructive openers and one of the greatest batsman of his era,he played for Delhi Capitals in IPL and Delhi and Haryana in Indian domestic cricket. He played his first One Day International in 1999 and joined the Indian Test side in 2001. In April 2009,Sehwag became the first Indian to be honoured as the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World for his performance in 2008,subsequently becoming the first player of any nationality to retain the award for 2009. He worked as stand-in captain occasionally during absence of main captain of India,also worked as Vice-Captain for Indian squad. He is former captain of Delhi Daredevils and Delhi Ranji Team. During his time with India,Sehwag was a member of the team that was one of the joint winners of the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy,the winners of the 2007 T20 World Cup,and the winners of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. During the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy,Sehwag was the highest run scorer with 271 runs. In 2023,he was inducted into ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
In cricket,a players' batting average is the total number of runs they have scored divided by the number of times they have been out,usually given to two decimal places. Since the number of runs a player scores and how often they get out are primarily measures of their own playing ability,and largely independent of their teammates,batting average is a good metric for an individual player's skill as a batter. The number is also simple to interpret intuitively. If all the batter's innings were completed,this is the average number of runs they score per innings. If they did not complete all their innings,this number is an estimate of the unknown average number of runs they score per innings.
Daryl Joseph Mitchell is a New Zealand cricketer who plays all formats of the game for the New Zealand national team and represents Canterbury in domestic cricket. He is the son of New Zealand rugby union coach and former player John Mitchell.
The New Zealand cricket team toured Australia in November and December 2019 to play three Test matches. The Test series was played for the Trans-Tasman Trophy and formed part of the inaugural 2019–2021 ICC World Test Championship. The first Test was a day/night match at the Perth Stadium. Cricket Australia confirmed the fixtures for the tour in May 2019. New Zealand returned to Australia in March 2020 to play three One Day International (ODI) matches for the Chappell–Hadlee Trophy.
