Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world. The players are always bringing the game alive with their talents and skills. And in the process, records are made and broken. The records take the game to a greater level.
Here are 15 cricket records that are considered unbreakable!
1. 100 International Centuries of Sachin Tendulkar.
Sachin Tendulkar is arguably the best and the most talented batsman to have played the game. He is considered the perfect batsman in international cricket. Also known as the God of Cricket, he has crossed the century mark 100 times in his glorious career. He has 51 centuries in Tests and 49 in ODIs.
Behind him is former Australian captain Ricky Ponting with 71 centuries. Indian batsman Virat Kohli has often been seen as the potential player to break Tendulkar’s 100 centuries cricket record. Kohli has 70 centuries to his name to date.
Tendulkar has scored 34357 international runs. He has 15,921 runs in ODIs and 18,426 runs in Tests. Tendulkar holds the crown for being the all-time leading run-scorer at the international level.
2. Sir Don Bradman's average of 99.94 in Test cricket
Sir Donald Bradman is considered the greatest batsman ever to play the game. He played 52 Test matches. He scored 6996 runs at a dream average of 99.94. It is the highest for any batsman who has played at least 10 Tests. Nobody in the history of the game has come close to Bradman’s astronomical average.
Also, 12 of his 19 Test centuries are double hundreds, the most for a batsman. This cricket record is impossible to break.
3. Brian Lara's highest Test innings score of 400 not-out
The West Indies batting wizard Brian Charles Lara is one of the greatest batsmen to play the game. He was popularly called ‘the run machine’ for his entire career.
It comes as no surprise that he holds the record for the most number of runs scored in first-class cricket. He scored 501 runs for Warwickshire against Durham and broke Hanif Mohammed’s record of 499 runs.
He did this in his International Cricket career also. He held the cricket record for the highest individual score in a test innings with 375 runs for 10 years before he was surpassed by Australia’s Matthew Hayden who scored 380.
However, Brian Lara quickly took back his spot at the top after scoring unbelievable innings of 400 runs against England in 2004. Since then, batsmen have come close but nobody has been able to register the 400 mark with David Warner being the closest.
4. Muttiah Muralitharan's 1300 international wickets
Legendary Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has the cricket record to his name for most wickets in international cricket.
He has 800 test wickets and 534 ODI wickets.
He has an average of over six wickets per Test. Muralitharan is one of the most successful bowlers in the game. He held the number one spot in the ICC’s player rankings for Test bowlers for a record period of 1,711 days having played 214 Test matches.
5. Rohit Sharma's highest ODI score of 264 runs
The ‘hitman’ Rohit Sharma is one of the best Indian batsmen playing the game these days.
Rohit Sharma has the cricket record of highest score by any batsman in ODI cricket to his name. He scored 264 runs from 173 balls against Sri Lanka in 2014.
He is the only batsman with 3 double centuries in ODI cricket!
6. Sunil Narine’s maiden super over
West Indies player, Sunil Narine is arguably one of the best spinners in T20 cricket. He plays for many teams in top T20 leagues around the world and has been the star bowler in every game.
Narine's greatest cricket record moment in his T20 career came for Guyana Amazon Warriors in the Caribbean Premier League in 2014 where he bowled a maiden Super Over against Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel. Narine bowled five dot balls and picked up a wicket in the Super Over while defending a measly target of 12 runs.
Known for his variations and wicket-taking skills, Narine has been a vital part of the Kolkata Knight Riders bowling unit in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
7. Chris Gayle's fastest T20 century
Chris Gayle is a West Indies player known to be an explosive and power-hitting batsman. He played for the Punjab Kings in the last four seasons of the IPL. He didn’t play IPL this year.
Gayle scored a century in only 30 balls in the IPL against Pune Warriors, playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2013. The West Indian broke Australia’s Andrew Symonds’ 34-ball hundred cricket record.
In the same match, he went on to score 175 runs in 66 balls to become the highest individual run-scorer in an innings of a T20 match.
8. AB de Villiers’ fastest ODI hundred from 31 balls
AB de Villiers is a South African batsman. He is popularly known as Mr 360 for his ability to hit the ball to all areas of the ground.
He currently holds the cricket record for the fastest century in ODIs playing just 31 balls to reach his century. Playing against the West Indies, de Villiers batted explosively, scoring 149 runs in just 44 balls.
The record-smashing innings from de Villiers helped the South African reach the score of 439/2. It is the fourth-highest ODI total of all time.
9. Yuvraj Singh’s 6 sixes in 6 balls in the t20 World Cup
Yuvraj Singh is an Indian cricketer. The spinner all-rounder is one of the best players that the game has seen. He played a very crucial role for India in the 2011 World Cup triumph.
India and England played in a do-or-die match in the first edition of the ICC World T20. India was batting first. Yuvraj Singh came to bat in the 17th over and found his rhythm soon. He hit Andrew Flintoff for 2 boundaries in an over. They had a heated exchange. Then Stuart Broad came to bowl and the rest is the history of an unthinkable cricket record. Yuvraj hit him 6 sixes all across the ground. The runs were very crucial and helped India to win the match.
10. Taking almost 20 wickets in a Test!
A ten-wicket haul would be a dream of any bowler in a Test match. However, taking it twice in a match is simply next to impossible.
England’s Jim Laker almost did it in 1956 against Australia. He took 9 wickets in the first innings and a 10-wicket haul in the second innings. His unbelievable match figure of 19 wickets for 90 runs is almost an impossible cricket record to break.
11. Lasith Malinga took four wickets in four balls twice(2007 & 2019)
Lasith Malinga is a Sri Lankan pacer. He is a living legend who has been Sri Lanka’s number 1 pacer for a long time. He has slinging bowling action which is very unique to him.
Taking a hattrick is a great achievement in itself. However, taking 4 wickets in 4 balls is taking things on a different level altogether. Malinga is the only player to achieve this cricket record, that too not once but twice!
The first one came in a T20 match against New Zealand, helping his side to restrict the Kiwis to a total of just 88 runs and winning the match.
The second one came against South Africa in a 2007 World Cup super 8 match.
12. Irfan Pathan's hat-trick in the first over of a Test
Irfan Pathan is an Indian all-rounder. He played for India from 2003-2012.
In a match against Pakistan, he became the second Indian to take a hat-trick in Test cricket. The final three balls of the first over of the game saw Pathan make his way into the cricket record books.
13. Jason Gillespie’s highest score by a Night Watchman
A night watchman’s job is to bat until the end of the day and ‘stumps’ and protect other capable batsmen from losing their wickets near the end of the day’s play.
However, there have been occasions when night watchmen have done more than for what they were sent for. Australia’s night watchman Jason Gillespie scored an unbeaten double ton (201 runs) in a Test match against Bangladesh in 2006 to set a cricket record.
14. Most Runs in Career
One of the impossible-to-break records belongs to the most prolific run-scorer in the history of the sport. Sir Jack Hobbs in his first-class career scored 61760 runs.
He scored 199 centuries which is another cricket record itself.
His Test record is impressive too, with 15 hundreds in 61 Tests with an average of 56.94.
15. Shortest Test Match
A Test match is played for 5 days. Some end in 3 or 4 days. But do you know that one Test match ended in less than a day with a result?
The Test match between Australia and South Africa in 1932 was the shortest test match played with a result. The game was over in five hours and 53 minutes! South Africa was all-out for 36 and 45 against Australia’s score of 153. This is the most amusing cricket record ever!
These were some of the unbreakable records in the history of Cricket. These records were the defining moments of the game. It helps the sport to grow and have a greater reach. We hope to see more cricket records made in the future.