1969
A pariah was born. As the cold, intense figure of Hansie Cronje led South Africa during the late nineties it seemed there were fewer more virtuous men in cricket, making it all the more shocking when he was exposed as a charlatan, central to the plague of match-fixing. Accusations had been rife for many years but it was on April 7, 2000 - when a Delhi detective stumbled across a conversation between Cronje and businessman Sanjay Chawla - that Pandora's box was well and truly opened. Cronje's misdemeanours, some proven, some not, are too depressing to list here. But we do know that his instigation of a controversial double forfeiture with Nasser Hussain at Centurion Park in 1999-2000, the first in Test history, was motivated by avarice, and that his actions have left an indelible stain on the game that made him. Cronje died in a plane crash in May 2002.

1946
With his thick beard and variety of colourful patkas Bishan Bedi, who was born today, was one of the most distinctive figures ever to grace Test cricket. He was also a master of the art of slow left-arm bowling. At his peak Bedi's control and variation of curve, flight, spin and pace were exemplary. Captain of India in 22 Tests, he was one of cricket's most popular figures but he was not afraid of confrontation and declared both Indian innings closed prematurely as a protest against intimidatory bowling on a Sabina Park death trap in 1975-76. In all Bedi took 266 Test wickets, including 14 five-wicket hauls, before bowing out at The Oval in 1979.

1942
An unremarkable career record but a permanent place in the history books for Peter Petherick, who was born today. The Kiwi offspinner is one of only two men - Maurice Allom being the other - to take a hat-trick on his Test debut. He did so against Pakistan in Lahore in 1976-77 at the age of 34, having only made his first-class debut for Otago a year earlier, and what an illustrious triumvirate it was: Javed Miandad, Wasim Raja and Intikhab Alam. But there was only one way for Petherick to go from there, and he duly obliged. He played just six Tests, five of which New Zealand lost, taking 16 wickets at an average of 42.56.

1949
One of the last West Indian spinners before they switched to a four-pronged pace attack in the late seventies, the chinaman bowler Inshan Ali was born today. Ali's unorthodox nature made him very successful at first-class level but, despite abundant talent, he struggled to bowl teams out in the Test arena, in part precipitating the shift to pace. Even when he did, taking 5 for 59 against New Zealand at Trinidad in 1971-72, he was unable to finish the job. Ali played 12 Tests in all, his 34 wickets each costing nearly 50, before dying of throat cancer in Trinidad in 1995.

1961
The birth of an unusual all-rounder. Such was the excellence of Ian Healy that legspinning wicketkeeper Tim Zoehrer played only 10 Tests, and all during Australia's barren mid-eighties run, but he remained a worthy understudy and as his career developed so did his predilection for bowling leggies and googlies. He even topped the bowling averages on the 1993 Australian tour of England. A gregarious character whose popularity in Western Australia was such that his displacement by Adam Gilchrist at first caused real ructions, Zoehrer spent much of his career in the shadows.

1999
Nineteen-year-old Kenyan seamer Josephat Ababu bowled Neil Johnson with the first ball of his international career but Zimbabwe eased home in their LG Cup match by three wickets with four balls to spare. It was an early taste of success for Ababu but to date his last: in three one-day internationals it was his only wicket.

1771
The Hambledon Club, who at the time were cricket's lawmakers, responded to the challenge of Thomas `Shock' White by limiting the width of a bat to four and a quarter inches. White had appeared on the field with a bat as wide as the wicket.

Other birthdays
1929 John Rutherford (Australia)
1944 Grayson Shillingford (West Indies)
1959 Andy Waller (Zimbabwe)
1962 Raju Kulkarni (India)
1965 Minhajul Adedin (Bangladesh)
1965 Dave Rundle (South Africa)

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