5 Most interesting coincidences in cricket history

The first-ever international game was played way back in 1877. It’s been almost a century and a half and cricket has evolved in a huge way. In fact, it seems to be improving every single day. More than 7500 international games (2365+ Test matches, 4210+ ODIs and 985+ T20Is) have been played so far.

Out of so many, coincidences are a little common. You will tend to find similar patterns between two games separated by years, decades and even centuries. Quite a few players tend to get compared by their scoring patterns and consistency. Coincidences occur between numbers or any sort of stat between players from two different eras as well.

Hence, here we look at the five most interesting coincidences in the history of the game.

1. Scoring 183 and becoming India’s next captain

183 is a special and an interesting number in Indian cricket. It is the highest ODI score of three Indian greats. Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, all of them have a career-best ODI score of 183. Moreover, another interesting fact is that, all three of them became the Indian captain soon-after making that score.

It was in the 1999 World Cup that the ‘Prince of Kolkata’ made that score. In the 21st game of the tournament, Ganguly smashed Sri Lanka to pieces when he struck 183 off 159 balls. And in 2000, after the spot-fixing controversy broke out, Ganguly became the Indian captain.

In 2005, Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 183 when he was promoted to No. 3 in a chase of 299 against Sri Lanka in Jaipur. A couple of years later when most of the seniors opted out of the T20 World Cup in 2007, Dhoni was made the captain. Right after the tournament, he ascended to the ODI captaincy as well but had to wait for a year to reach the helm in Test cricket.

In 2012, during an Asia Cup game against Pakistan, India were chasing 330. Kohli stroked a fine 183 to lead the ‘Men in Blue’ to a win. A year later, he made his captaincy debut and in December 2014 when Dhoni retired from Test cricket, the Delhi lad took over the captaincy in the longest format. In January 2017, he became captain of all formats.