Unrepeatable
Records the rules now forbid.
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1933
Retired hurt, absent hurt
Bert Oldfield’s skull was fractured at Adelaide in 1933. The Laws were rewritten because of the field England were setting, and that field cannot be set today.
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1939
The match with no last day
The fifth Test at Durban was played to a finish, and after ten days it was abandoned as a draw so England could catch a boat.
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1956
The man at the other end
Jim Laker took nineteen wickets at Old Trafford. Tony Lock bowled sixty-nine overs from the opposite end on the same pitch and took one.
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1958
Nine hundred and seventy minutes
Hanif Mohammad batted for sixteen hours and thirteen minutes at Bridgetown to save a Test. It is the longest innings ever played and the format that allowed it is gone.
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1981
Along the ground
Greg Chappell told his brother to bowl the last ball underarm. New Zealand needed six to tie, and Bruce Edgar watched it from the other end on 102 not out.
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1993
Handled the ball, 133
Graham Gooch was out handled the ball for 133 at Old Trafford in 1993, the only man dismissed that way in a Test after making a hundred. The dismissal no longer exists, so no card will ever read that way again.
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1977
Forty-five, twice
The Centenary Test at Melbourne in 1977 was a one-off, outside any series, played to mark a hundred years of the first Test on the same ground. Australia won it by 45 runs, which is what they had won the first one by.
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1959
Twelve for 100 at Dacca
Fazal Mahmood captained Pakistan and took twelve wickets for 100 at Dacca in March 1959, in a home Test that ended inside three days. The ground is now in another country, and the card carries both names for the city.
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2002
Two hundred in 153 balls
Nathan Astle went from 150 to 200 in 17 balls at Christchurch in 2002, chasing 550, and was out for 222 with New Zealand 98 short. The card carries the numbers by the ball and the session, and the player of the match went to the other side.
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1980
A hundred and thirteen wickets
Ian Botham made 114 and took six for 58 and seven for 48 in the Golden Jubilee Test at Bombay in 1980, and the wicketkeeper at the other end of the bowling caught ten of the twenty. The card is the record of one match doing the work of two.
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1998
Sixteen for 220
Muttiah Muralitharan took seven for 155 and nine for 65 at The Oval in 1998, in a one-off Test England had led by 445 runs on the first innings. The tenth wicket of the second innings was a run-out by a substitute, which is the only reason the nine was not ten.
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1998
Two nights in Sharjah
Sachin Tendulkar made 143 against Australia on 22 April 1998, in a match interrupted by a sandstorm and lost, and 134 against the same attack in the final two days later, on his twenty-fifth birthday, and won. The two cards read like one innings with a rest day.
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2022
Thirty-five off one over
Jasprit Bumrah, captaining India, took 35 runs off a Stuart Broad over at Edgbaston in July 2022, the most ever conceded in a Test over. The card shows a 31 not out from 16 balls and a bowler’s line of 18 overs for 89, and leaves the over itself to be worked out.
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2006
Four hundred and thirty-eight
Australia made 434 for four at Johannesburg on 12 March 2006 and South Africa made 438 for nine with a ball to spare. The card has two players of the match, a bowler who conceded 113 in ten overs, and a last wicket that fell with two runs still needed.
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1976
Four hundred and six for four
Clive Lloyd declared at Port of Spain in April 1976 and set India 403 with three spinners to bowl at them. India made 406 for four, the highest chase in Test history at the time, and the card shows what the three spinners were given to do with it.
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2023
Two hundred and fifty-six, chasing 258
New Zealand followed on 226 behind at Wellington in February 2023, made 483, and won by one run when James Anderson was caught behind with two needed. It was the fourth Test won after following on, and the card has the last day by the session.
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1999
One hundred and twenty-three of 184
Michael Slater made 123 of Australia’s 184 at Sydney in January 1999, and the card works out the share for him: 66.85 per cent, the second-highest in any Test innings, behind a figure set in the first Test of all. The next best score was 24.
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1999
Ten for 74
Anil Kumble took all ten Pakistan wickets in the second innings at Delhi in February 1999, the second time it had been done in a Test. The card has four bowlers in that innings, three of them with no wicket, and a fall of wickets that begins at 101 without one.
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1988
Sixteen for 136, aged nineteen
Narendra Hirwani took eight for 61 and eight for 75 on his Test debut at Madras in January 1988. The card gives sixteen for 136, six stumpings for the wicketkeeper, and four debutants in the same match. The record for a first Test has not been passed since.
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1877
One hundred and sixty-five, retired hurt
The first Test scorecard, Melbourne, March 1877, has Charles Bannerman retired hurt for 165 out of an Australian total of 245. Only one other man in the match passed 40. The share he took of his own side’s innings has not been passed since, and the card sets out how it was made.
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1952
Twelve for 108, and a first
Vinoo Mankad took eight for 55 and four for 53 at Madras in February 1952, and India beat England by an innings and eight runs. It was India’s first Test win, twenty years and twenty-five Tests after their first match. The card has a rest day in the wrong place, and a second document explains it.
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2013
Seventy-four, in the two hundredth
Sachin Tendulkar’s last Test innings, at the Wankhede in November 2013, is a line on the card reading caught Sammy bowled Deonarine 74. The match was over on the third day, Pragyan Ojha took ten wickets, and Rohit Sharma made a hundred in his second Test. The card gives Tendulkar two overs as well.