1872
Birth of probably England's greatest allround sportsman, and a man whose life was like a Boy's Own story. The legendary CB Fry received an Oxford Blue for football, cricket and athletics, and as well as playing football for his country he won 26 Test caps. He was a princely batsman, who did most of his work off the back foot and on the leg side; he and his soulmate Ranjitsinhji were the cornerstones of Sussex cricket, and Fry scored 2000 runs in a season six times. He later stood as a Liberal candidate for Parliament, became a successful journalist and author, and was offered the Kingdom of Albania. He died in Hampstead in 1956.

Click here to see footage of CB Fry (10 secs)

1976
Fractious, farcical fare in Jamaica, where India lost the deciding fourth Test to West Indies by ten wickets, even though India only lost 11 wickets themselves in the whole match. That's because a series of batsmen were forced to retire hurt because of some venomous short-pitched bowling from Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel. Injuries to Anshuman Gaekwad, Gundappa Viswanath and Brijesh Patel meant that, in the second innings, Srinivas Venkataraghavan (Test average: 11) came in at No. 5. India used all 17 members of their touring party at some stage of the match. Just to rub salt in the wound, one of the subs, Surinder Amarnath, had to be rushed to hospital with appendicitis on the fourth day.

1896
Cricket's Rock of Gibraltar is born. Australian Charles Kelleway's unyielding staying power earnt him that nickname, and he batted everywhere from No. 1 to No. 9 in Tests. He was a bit of a lucky charm: he averaged 45 when Australia didn't lose, 22 when they did. Kelleway also bowled fast-medium with enough nip to take a five-for against South Africa at Old Trafford in 1912, the match in which he made his first Test hundred. Kelleway made another hundred against South Africa in the Triangular Tournament of 1912, and then 147 against England at Sydney in 1920-21. He died in New South Wales in 1944.

1948
A seamer-turned-journalist is born. Mike Selvey was an old-fashioned English seamer, tall and chunky with an open-chested action, who formed a fearsome new-ball partnership with Wayne Daniel at Middlesex. He had the misfortune to begin his short Test career against the rampant 1976 West Indians, but he did snare Roy Fredericks, Viv Richards and Alvin Kallicharran in his first four overs on debut at Old Trafford. Selvey is now cricket correspondent of The Guardian, and a Test Match Special summariser.

1930
Only four Tests for the scholarly, bespectacled West Indian opener Roy Marshall, but he would have played many more had he not moved to Hampshire at the age of 21. Those four Tests were in Australia and New Zealand in 1951-52, when Marshall got a series of starts but failed to pass 30. He was a huge success at Hampshire, though, capable of destroying even the best attacks, and in all scored over 35,000 first-class runs. Over 1000 of those came on West Indies 1950 tour of England, when Marshall did not play in a Test. He later became chairman of Somerset's Cricket Committee, and died in Taunton in 1992.

1953
Birth of the bulky, red-headed Australian batsman Gary Cosier, who made a century on his Test debut against West Indies at Melbourne in 1975-76. In the Melbourne Test against Pakistan a year later Cosier trumped that with a brutal, Test-best 168. But he sometimes struggled to control his shot-playing instincts, and faded badly towards the end of his Test career, making seven single-figure scores in his last eight innings.

Other birthdays

1848 Tom Armitage (England)
1902 Fred Price (England)
1938 John Nagenda (East Africa)
1964 Jamie Siddons (Australia)
1969 Glen Bruk-Jackson (Zimbabwe)
1969 Sanjeeva Ranatunga (Sri Lanka)

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