1978
The first concession in international cricket history. In the third one-dayer against Pakistan at Sahiwal, Indian captain Bishan Bedi called his batsmen from the field - they needed only 23 off 14 balls with eight wickets in hand - as a protest against the bowling of Sarfraz Nawaz, who had just sent down four bouncers on the trot, none of which was called a wide. Never shy when it came to sticking to his principles, Bedi already had form in this area: in the fourth Test against West Indies in Jamaica in 1975-76 he declared India's first innings closed as a protest against intimidatory bowling. There has only been one other actual concession since - when Alec Stewart gave a match at Headingley to Pakistan in 2001 - though a few matches have been abandoned because of crowd trouble, most notably the 1996 World Cup semi-final between India and Sri Lanka at Calcutta.

1999
The end of the longest innings in first-class cricket. Rajeev Nayyar, a 31-year-old middle-order batsman, took 1015 minutes (five minutes short of 17 hours) to compile a career-best 271 for Himachal Pradesh against Jammu & Kashmir in the Ranji Trophy. He faced 728 balls and hit 26 fours and, rather rashly, one six.

1996
A hat-trick for Saqlain Mushtaq as Pakistan thrashed Zimbabwe in the third one-dayer at Peshawar, a match continually interrupted by crowd trouble.

1959
Birth of Vaughan Brown, the New Zealand offspinner whose only Test wicket cost Richard Hadlee a ten-for. In the first Test against Australia at Brisbane in 1985-86, a rampant Hadlee had taken the first eight wickets to fall when Brown had Geoff Lawson well caught in the deep ... by Hadlee himself. Frank Keating described it as the catch of the century, not so much for the catch itself (though it was eminently droppable) but because, with Dave Gilbert (Test average: 7) Bob Holland (3) at Nos 10 and 11, Hadlee was well set to become only the second bowler to take all ten in a Test innings, after Jim Laker (Anil Kumble later achieved the feat against Pakistan at Delhi in 1998-99). Brown was also the first winner of the New Zealand Cricket Council's "Young Player to Lord's" scholarship, in 1979, although he had to return after injuring his neck in a car accident.

1964
Birth of a late developer. New Zealander Bryan Young was a journeyman wicketkeeper and lower-order bat with Northern Districts for almost ten years before he reinvented himself as a dogged opening batsman to great effect in the early 1990s. He ground out 38 (off 167 balls) and a relatively skittish 53 (off 122) on debut at Brisbane in 1993-94, and the following winter, in the second Test against South Africa, he treated the Durban crowd to the third-slowest fifty in Test history (333 minutes) despite New Zealand being well on their way to defeat. But Young could win Test matches too: his 120 anchored the remarkable run-chase (324 for 5, New Zealand's highest fourth-innings total to win a Test) against Pakistan at Christchurch in 1993-94, and he hammered an unbeaten 267 (the second-highest Test score by a New Zealander) in the innings victory over Sri Lanka in 1996-97.

1900
The Durham-born allrounder Roger Blunt was born today. He played in New Zealand's first nine Tests, but this was no case of a rat joining a sinking ship - Blunt's parents emigrated when he was six months old. He started off as predominantly a legspinner, but developed into a stylish batsman whose bowling was a handy second suit. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year before New Zealand had played a Test, after an impressive 1927 tour, and he hit 42 off an eight-ball over, with seven sixes, for West Christchurch against Riccarton in 1923. And in 1931-32 he slammed a run-a-minute 338 not out for Otago against Canterbury; he is one of only five New Zealand first-class triple-centurions (Bert Sutcliffe, Glenn Turner, Ken Rutherford and Mark Richardson are the others). Blunt died in London in 1966.

1983
A drawn second Test against West Indies at Delhi extended India's winless run to 25 matches, a national record, but having been pasted by an innings in the first Test they were probably happy to get away unscathed. As high-scoring draws go, this wasn't a bad one. Sunil Gavaskar flashed the quickest of his 34 Test hundreds off only 94 balls on the first day, and when he reached 104 he became the third man to reach 8000 Test runs after Garry Sobers and Geoff Boycott. There were also tons for Dilip Vengsarkar and Clive Lloyd as well as a successful return to the Test arena for Wayne Daniel, who took three wickets in each innings in his first Test appearance for seven years.

1928
Patsy Hendren hit an even 100 for MCC against Victoria in a tour match at Melbourne, thus becoming the fifth batsman to make a century of first-class centuries, after WG Grace, Tom Hayward, Jack Hobbs and Phil Mead. Hendren went on to make a further 70 tons before retiring in 1937, and is second only to Hobbs (197) on the alltime list.

Other birthdays
1884 Claude Floquet (South Africa)
1892 Joe Small (West Indies)
1902 Charles Jones (West Indies)
1934 Dick Richardson (England)
1951 Azmat Rana (Pakistan)
1977 Hemantha Boteju (Sri Lanka)

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