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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Hughes was a new father of twins at that point.
He wanted to, as great batsmen often do, celebrate the event with a big score.
He wanted a double-hundred, nothing less.
What happened was like this.
Wood played one to backward point and set off.
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Hughes responded by reflex and was run out by five yards without facing a ball.
Wood's career seemed to be over when Australia began to rebuild their team in the mid-1980s.
Three years later they were almost there.
It seemed unlikely that Wood would return.
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But they had to recall him after a superb domestic season, for the Pakistan tour, then when the West Indians came over.
How do you face pace without Wood?
By then Marsh and Boon were an established pair, so Wood batted down the order.
Wood got 6 and 0 at Brisbane.
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But they had to retain him – for who would handle Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh, and Patterson at Perth?
And not just any Perth pitch.
Mark Ray: "No Test cricketer should have been asked to bat on such a pitch, let alone against West Indies."
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Christian Ryan: "chipped and crusty, littered with loose flakes of turf as big as pizzas."
West Indies got 449. Australia soon became 167/4.
Wood was joined at the crease by Steve Waugh, almost a decade younger to him, then an all-rounder yet to score a Test hundred.
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They added 200 at about a run a minute.
Wood got 111 in 176 balls. He did not merely wear down the pacers. He "jumped up and bunted down the janglers at his throat". He hooked, pulled, cut...
In the second innings Australia had to bat out 88 overs.
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They were a man down (Ambrose had smashed Lawson's jaw).
West Indies won with 20 minutes to spare – but not before Wood batted for 103 minutes.
One final Wood anecdote.
When Australia played West Indies, Greg Chappell's advice was to go after the fifth bowler.
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On one occasion, Wood asked Chappell: "Who is the fifth? Who do we go after?"
He was promptly demoted down the order.
You see, the attack consisted of Roberts, Holding, Garner, Croft, and Marshall.
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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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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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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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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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