Nearly two millennia after leading the Roman invasion of Britain, batsman Julius Caesar made three centuries for Surreyduring the Victorian era. Like the first Roman Emperor, he also came to a sudden and rather unfortunate end in the month of March — nine days before the Ides -throwing himself underneath a train in 1878.
Being bowled out for under 100 used to be commonplace back in the time of Queen Victoria, but until recently instances were few and far between in the modern game and normally (although not always) featured Bangladesh.
When we asked a few months ago if Ricky Ponting had lost his punch, despite being English we did so with a heavy heart, given that we always had a strange and inexplicable affection for him.
This may seem a strange thing for an England supporter to write the day after a bowler has just taken seven for 55 against our country, but it just confirmed that we're big fans of Saeed Ajmal here at The Reverse Sweep.
A lot has happened since England last played a Test match. Regimes have fallen, cricketers have been incarcerated, David Warner and Vernon Philander have taken to Test cricket like ducks to water and man has finally landed on the moon.
Got out to a nothing shot having done all the hard work on the first morning, Gautam Gambhir then got a snorter from Mitchell Starc second time around. Run without a Test hundred now extends to two years, 19 Tests and 37 innings.
The joint-fourth fastest Test ton ever and the quickest ever by an opener. What more can you say? David Warner has taken to Test cricket like a duck to water with two contrasting hundreds and an average of 64 after his first five Tests.
Four of the seven quickest hundreds in Test history have come at the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) or should it now be renamed the Whacker?!) – three of these have been scored by opening batsmen and indeed are the three quickest hundreds ever scored by openers in Test history.
Whilst Brad Haddin would do well to look at his own form before casting aspersions on the fragility or otherwise of India he may have a point — albeit a crass and clumsily made one.
Four Indians — Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and Shantakumaran Sreesanth find a place in the Worst Test XI of 2011.