Times they are a-changing. Until recently, nobody had ever been run out for 99 in a one-day international. Now there have three such instances in the space of 14 weeks - and all three have involved Sri Lanka. On November 29 at Centurion, the South African Graeme Smith made cricket history when he hesitated in mid-pitch and was beaten by six inches by Mahela Jayawardene's throw. Seven weeks later, it was Sanath Jayasuriya who stumbled at the last - quite literally, in fact, as he clattered into his wandering team-mate, Kumar Sangakkara, against England at Adelaide. Today, Adam Gilchrist caught the bug, courtesy of a stunning return from Chaminda Vaas, and once again, Centurion failed to live up to its name.

As the Wisden Wizard shows, the previous 13 instances had all occurred in Test cricket. The earliest was Australia's Bill Brown, who fell one short against India at Melbourne in 1947-48. But Brown at least had four centuries to his name already, unlike the two New Zealanders on the list, Jeff Beck and Dipak Patel, neither of whom ever reached three figures. In the same match that Patel made his unwanted mark on the record books, at Christchurch in 1991-92, his team-mate, John Wright, was stumped for 99, and two English batsmen, Robin Smith and Allan Lamb, also fell in the nervous nineties.

The list also includes three future English captains, in MJK Smith, Graham Gooch and Mike Atherton. Neither MJK nor Gooch had yet recorded a Test century (and Gooch, who was in his 19th Test, must have wondered where his first one would come from), while Atherton, in 1993, would never again get so close to a century at Lord's.

Gilchrist is the first Australian to suffer the fate since Arthur Morris against South Africa at Melbourne in 1952-53, but since the year 2000 there have been a deluge of 99 run outs. Sri Lanka's Jayawardene and the South Africans Jacques Kallis and Neil McKenzie are the most recent victims in Test cricket. And then there was the curious case of South Africa's captain, Shaun Pollock, who was left stranded on 99 not out in the Test against Sri Lanka, just a week before Smith's innings.

Click here for a full Test and ODI list.

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