Ten for 74

Pakistan needed 420 to win the second Test at Delhi in February 1999 and were 101 for no wicket after lunch on the fourth day. They were all out for 207. The card’s bowling table for the innings has four names, and three of them have a nought in the wickets column. The fourth reads Kumble, 26.3 overs, nine maidens, 74 runs, ten wickets.

How 420 was set

India chose to bat and were 247 for eight at the close of the first day. They made 252, Sadagoppan Ramesh 60, Mohammad Azharuddin 67, Saqlain Mushtaq five for 94.

Pakistan replied with 172, Kumble four for 75, Harbhajan Singh three for 30. India’s second innings was 339, Ramesh 96, Sourav Ganguly 62 not out, Javagal Srinath 49 from number nine, Saqlain five for 122 from 46.4 overs. The lead was 419, and India had batted into the fourth morning to get it, closing the third day on 324 for seven.

Full scorecard: India v Pakistan, 2nd Test, Delhi, 4–7 February 1999 →

The ledger of 207

Shahid Afridi, caught Mongia, 41, at 101. Ijaz Ahmed, leg before, 0, first ball, at 101. Inzamam-ul-Haq, bowled, 6, at 115. Mohammad Yousuf, leg before, 0, second ball, at 115. Moin Khan, caught Ganguly, 3, at 127.

Saeed Anwar, caught Laxman, 69, at 128. Saleem Malik, bowled, 15, at 186. Wasim Akram, caught Laxman, 37, at 207. Mushtaq Ahmed, caught Dravid, 1, at 198. Saqlain, leg before, 0, first ball, at 198. Waqar Younis, not out 6, from five balls, with the one four the tail managed.

Every dismissal has the same bowler’s name. Six were caught, two bowled, two leg before, and three of the ten went first or second ball. From 101 for none, Pakistan lost six wickets for 27, and the last four for 21.

The other three

Srinath bowled twelve overs for 50 without a wicket, with two wides and seven no-balls. Venkatesh Prasad bowled four overs for 15, none. Harbhajan bowled 18 for 51, none. Between them, 34 overs and no wicket, on a day when the fourth bowler took ten in 26.3. The card gives the figures and nothing else.

What has been said since, by team-mates, is that once Kumble had nine, Srinath bowled deliberately wide of the off stump so that the tenth could not be his. The card cannot confirm it. What it can show is that Srinath’s twelve overs cost 50 with two wides and seven no-balls, and that the last wicket, Akram caught by Laxman, went to the man who had taken the other nine.

The second time

All ten in a Test innings had been done once before, by Jim Laker at Old Trafford in 1956, forty-three years earlier, with nine for 37 in the other innings for nineteen in the match. Kumble’s match figures were fourteen for 149. The card lists him as player of the match and Saqlain, with 20 wickets across the two Tests, as player of the series.

The series line reads two-match series drawn 1-1. Pakistan had won the first Test at Chennai by 12 runs the week before; India won the second by 212. The umpires were Arani Jayaprakash and Steve Bucknor, and it is Test number 1443.

What the card holds

A fall of wickets that starts at 101 and ends at 207 with the same surname beside every entry. Three bowlers with 34 overs and nothing. A 96 and a 49 from the batting that made the target. A five-for in each innings for the losing side’s spinner. And a bowling line of 26.3-9-74-10, which had one precedent in 1,443 Tests and has had one successor since.

••••••

No. 18 in Unrepeatable, a series of 22.

NextSeventy-six for nine, declared