Random Cricket Photos Post 38



#RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy

The 2nd Test against Sri Lanka once again underlined the fact that Pakistan remains the master of turnarounds in Test cricket. Time and again they keep coming back from impossible situations to win Tests. Be it Kolkata 1999. Be it Karachi 2006. And, more recently, Abu Dhabi 2018.

This match took me back to another crazy match from 1999. On the first day of the Test match, the home team managed only a single wicket which came in the last over of the day. That too after the opening pair of the visiting side had put on 276 for the first wicket.


And they still went on to win.

This is a match that took place between West Indies and New Zealand in Hamilton. The Kiwis lost the toss and had to bowl first. And they kept on bowling the entire day to the pair of Sherwin Campbell and Adrian Griffith before Campbell got out with the score on 276. The Kiwis came back stronger the next day to wrap up the West Indies innings for 365.

Even 365 looked a more than decent total when Kiwis were reeling at 258 for 6.

But then a moment of serendipity turned the match.
258 for 6 should have been 258 for 7 because Chris Cairns ran for a suicidal single on the first ball he faced. And he was caught out of the crease. The only trouble was that the third umpire couldn't see what was happening when the bails came off because of a West Indies fielder blocking the view in the replays. And despite Cairns being clearly out, this problem meant that he didn't have conclusive evidence to give him out.

And Cairns was deemed not out. He scored 72 from 82 from number 8, the highest for the home team in the innings.

If there was any doubt who luck was favoring, Cairns quashed it all with a spell of 7 for 27 in the visitor's second innings in which they were all out for 97.

In the final innings, New Zealand just had 70 runs to get which they did for the loss of a single wicket.

One can only wonder what could have happened had Cairns been run out for a golden duck. Seems like Cairns is busy thinking the same here in this rather curious picture!

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