Kyle Christie made his international debut on this day, 2016, in an ODI for Hong Kong against Papua New Guinea.

His was the most 2010s debut possible.

But before narrating this, I must acknowledge @pramz for the interview and photograph (and for how good a colleague he was).
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Had he been born twenty, or even ten, years earlier, Christie would probably have not played international cricket.

On July 25, 2016, Hong Kong Cricket put up an advertisement on their Facebook page, inviting all interested Hong Kong-borns living outside the country.
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Christie was only three when he had left Hong Kong with his parents.

He had been doing a decent job as a seam bowler in club cricket in Perth. Now he responded.

They liked what they saw: "They got back in touch with me and invited me out for a trial."
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He is still around. He played the T20 World Cup Qualifiers last year.

Social media is not that bad a place, then.

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More from @ovshake42

8 Nov
There are so many things about the phenomenon that was Martin Crowe.

Consider, for example, what he did on and around this day, 1992, at Harare.

The schedule was crazy.

New Zealand and Zimbabwe were supposed to play two Tests and two ODIs between October 31 and November 12.
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Basically 12 days of cricket out of 13. The only off-day would involve a Bulawayo-Harare travel.

How many cricketers from ICC full member sides would have agreed to this in 2020?

Things were normal in Bulawayo:
The ODI on October 31, the Test between November 1 and 5.
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Harare was different:
The Test on November 7, then 9-12. The ODI on November 8. Like the Sunday League in England.

Crowe won the toss in the Test match, batted first, and scored 140 in three hours. Of these, 96 came between lunch and tea.
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Read 5 tweets
8 Nov
November 7 (1917) will forever be associated with the Bolshevik Revolution.

Whether it was good or bad is something for domain experts to decide.

But there is little doubt that it marked the beginning of decline of cricket in Russia.

Here is something (not much) on that.
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St Petersburg used to have a cricket club in at least 1865. By 1895 there were four.

Nicholas I (monarch from 1796 to 1855) definitely saw a cricket match at Chatham.

The British Royal Yacht Osborne haled at the St Petersburg dockyard in 1875.
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The crew played a match against the British expatriates (after explaining this unusual activity to the police, who thought they were a "force of warriors").

In the 1880s, St Petersburg used to host an annual match (British diplomats vs textile mills managers and foremen).
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Read 8 tweets
6 Nov
Born on this day, 1956, Graeme Wood was one of the bravest batsmen against genuine pace.

Christian Ryan wrote, "He was the man the selectors rang whenever the Windies were in town."

Wood scored 3,374 runs at 32.

But in 6 Tests on West Indian soil, that average soared to 47.
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Tales of heroics are aplenty, but then – so are anecdotes of his terrible running between the wickets that earned him the nickname Kamikaze Kid.

An example of his running: Wood opened in all six Tests of the 1978-79 Ashes.
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In every Test there was an innings where either Wood (in two Tests) or his opening partner (in the other four) was run out.

"It began to look as if the wicket could do with traffic lights," Ray Robinson later wrote.

The most famous of his run outs involved Kim Hughes.
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Read 11 tweets
5 Nov
Eddie Paynter was born on this day, 1901.

Everyone knows his remarkable story during the Bodyline series.

It has few parallels in the history of international cricket.

But first, two numbers.
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His Test batting average of 59.23 is the sixth-best with a 1,500-run cut-off.

His Ashes batting average of 84.42 is the second-best with a 500-run cut-off.

Remember, this was the 1930s, when the Ashes was the contest to watch out for.

Yes, he could bat.
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Paynter replaced "conscientious objector" Pataudi for the controversial Adelaide Test, where Woodfull and Oldfield were both hit.

He scored 77 and 1* and fielded brilliantly.

However, he injured his ankle when he crashed into the picket fence while trying to save a ball.
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Read 18 tweets
2 Nov
On this day, 1931, Don Bradman did something at Blackheath that seems unthinkable even by his standards.

He slammed a hundred in 18 minutes, inside three overs.

True, these were eight-ball overs, but Bradman faced only 22 of these.
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Blackheath had invited Bradman and Wendell Bill (colleague of Bradman's at NSW) to play for them against Lithgow.

A reasonably large crowd had gathered for the match, which was played on a malthoid pitch.

Bradman wrote: "I had never seen a pitch with a malthoid top.
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"I'm still not sure if it was laid on a bitumen base or on concrete but it was perfectly flat and very smooth … The pitch proved ideal for batting in that the ball came off it at a gentle pace and with a particularly uniform and predictable bounce."
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Read 8 tweets
1 Nov
Born on this day, 1917, Sudangsu 'Montu'/'Mantu' Banerjee was also one of three S Banerjees to do well on Test debut and never play another Test match.

A gifted swing bowler, Banerjee thrived in Eden Gardens, especially in the afternoon breeze. He was also, er – a philosopher.
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Banerjee played only 26 First-Class matches across 13 years, claiming 92 wickets at 23.28 – remarkable numbers by any standards.

In his only Test he took 4/120 and 1/61, and held 3 catches.

But now for the philosophical bit, my source of which is mostly the late Madhav Apte.
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Banerjee used to compare life with cricket, for both are contests between good and evil (the logic of this eludes me).

He also believed that a cricket ball is red because is it not the red cherry with which the bowler tempts the batsman, temptation the batsman turns away from?
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Read 4 tweets

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