BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor
B20 February is known in cricket history for explosive centuries and deadly bowling. On this day, Brendon McCullum scored the fastest century in Test history in 54 balls and Tim Southee destroyed England by taking 7 wickets in the World Cup. Apart from this, Mahela Jayawardene scored the fastest World Cup century, India dominated in the 1993 Test and the strong World Cup wins of Australia and New Zealand are also special memories of this day.
In a Test match played in Mumbai in 1993, the England team was all out for 347 runs in their first innings on the second day of the match. In the first over of the second day, England batsman Graeme Hick completed his first Test century because he was not out on 99 runs at the end of the previous day. Hick scored 178 runs in this match, which was the highest score of the match, and this helped England reach a respectable total.
The Indian team came out to bat in reply and by the end of the second day’s play, they had scored 144 runs for the loss of 1 wicket. Navjot Singh Sidhu and Manoj Prabhakar added an excellent 109 runs for the first wicket and took full advantage of England’s poor bowling and fielding. At the end of the day’s play, Sidhu was on 69 runs and Vinod Kambli was on 20 runs at the crease.
On 20 February 2003 in a World Cup match played in Potchefstroom, Australia defeated the Netherlands by 75 runs under the D/L method. The match was heavily affected by rain and the ground staff even used a police helicopter to dry the pitch. Because of the rain the match was reduced to 36 overs. Netherlands captain Roland Lefebvre won the toss and decided to field first. Australia batted first and scored 170 runs for 2 wickets in 36 overs. Damien Martyn scored the highest 67 runs not out for the team and was also chosen as the Man of the Match.
Under the Duckworth-Lewis rule, the Netherlands were given a target of 198 runs in 36 overs to win the match. In reply the Netherlands team could not chase this target and were all out for just 122 runs in 30.2 overs. For the Netherlands Tim de Leede scored the highest 24 runs. From Australia Andy Bichel bowled brilliantly and took 3 wickets for 13 runs and Ian Harvey took 3 wickets for 25 runs. Australian captain Ricky Ponting praised the Netherlands because they showed full spirit to play the match despite the bad pitch and rain.
On 20 February 2011 Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene made the record for the fastest century by any Sri Lankan batsman in World Cup history. He completed his century in just 80 balls against Canada in Hambantota. The record was in the name of Sanath Jayasuriya, who had scored a century in 85 balls in 2007 before this milestone. Sri Lanka batted first in this match and scored a big total of 332/7 in 50 overs. Jayawardene hit 9 fours and 1 six in his innings. He added a brilliant 179 runs for the third wicket with the captain Kumar Sangakkara. However, Sangakkara missed his century by just 8 runs and was out after scoring 92 runs.
Canada could not chase this big target while replying in the second innings and were all out for just 122 runs in 36.5 overs. Sri Lanka won this match easily by a huge margin of 210 runs. Rizwan Cheema scored the highest 37 runs for Canada. Sri Lanka’s fast bowlers performed very well; Thisara Perera took 3 wickets for 24 runs and Nuwan Kulasekara took 3 wickets for 16 runs. Jayawardene was chosen as the Player of the Match for his brilliant innings.
In a World Cup match played in Chennai in 2011, New Zealand defeated Kenya easily by 10 wickets. It was a completely one-sided match in which Kenya batted first and were all out for just 69 runs in 23.5 overs. Kenya captain Jimmy Kamande admitted that his players were very nervous. Hamish Bennett bowled brilliantly for New Zealand and took 4 wickets for 16 runs. He got the chance to play in this match because Kyle Mills was injured. Tim Southee and Jacob Oram also bowled very well and took 3 wickets each. An interesting moment came when Oram took the last wicket and smiled at Southee and said sorry because Southee was waiting to complete his hat trick.
New Zealand were given a small target of just 70 runs to win the match. Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum opened the innings and scored 72 runs in just 8 overs without losing any wickets to give their team victory. Guptill scored a quick 39 runs not out and McCullum scored 26 runs not out. The match finished so quickly that New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori said he did not expect it. Hamish Bennett was chosen as the Player of the Match for his brilliant bowling.
On 20 February 2015 in Wellington, a World Cup match was played between New Zealand and England. The weather was very clear and the pitch looked good for batting so England captain Eoin Morgan won the toss and decided to bat first. But his decision proved completely wrong. New Zealand fast bowler Tim Southee troubled the England batsmen a lot with his brilliant late swing bowling. He bowled seven outswing deliveries in his very first over of the spell.
Southee bowled brilliantly in this match and took 7 wickets for just 33 runs. This is the best bowling performance by any New Zealand bowler in ODI history. Ian Bell, Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes could not stand against his swing and were bowled. England were all out for just 123 runs in 33.2 overs. New Zealand chased this target easily in just 12.2 overs as captain Brendon McCullum batted very fast. After the match captain Morgan admitted that New Zealand bowled and fielded very well.
On 20 February 2016 in Christchurch in a Test match, New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum created history. He completed his century in just 54 balls against Australia, which is the fastest century in Test cricket history. Playing the last Test match of his career McCullum scored 145 runs in 79 balls in this innings, which included 21 fours and 6 sixes. He batted brilliantly with Corey Anderson, who scored 72 runs and helped New Zealand post 370 runs in the first innings.
However, New Zealand could not win this match even after McCullum’s world record. Australia made a strong comeback and scored a big total of 505 runs in their first innings in which Joe Burns scored 170 runs. Australia chased the target easily in and won the match by 7 wickets and became the No. 1 team in Test cricket with this victory. Joe Burns was chosen as the Player of the Match for his excellent batting.
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