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Taking five-wicket haul and four-wicket haul makes a bowler undoubtedly great but what if a bowler has taken all ten wickets in an inning? When it comes to ten wickets former Indian leg spinner Anil Kumble comes to mind who took 10 wickets in 1999 at Feroz Shah Kotla Delhi against their arc rivals Pakistan. Only a few are aware of the first bowler who has done this in international cricket, former English spinner James Laker is the first person on the planet to dismiss all ten batters in an inning. He performed this wonder at Manchester against Australia in 1956.
After 1999 it took almost 22 years to repeat the performance. On this day in 2021, Indian Indian-origin New Zealand player Ajaz Patel did this feat in test cricket against India at their home ground Wankhede. In the second test of the two-match series which started a day before Ajaz became the third bowler to do the wonders on the second day.
Day 1
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It was the second test of a matches series between India vs New Zealand and India decided to bat after winning the toss. On the first day, India lost four wickets and scored 221 runs. All four wickets were taken taken by Ajaz Patel. Mayank Agrawal has scored a century and at the end of the first day, he has scored 120 runs. Shubhman Gill, Cheteswar Pujara, Virat Kohli, and Shreyas Iyer are the to be dismissed by Ajaz Patel on day one.
1st Wicket: Shubhman Gill – 44 (71)
2nd Wicket: Cheteswar Pujara – 0 (5)
3rd Wicket: Virat Kohli – 0 (4)
4th Wicket: Shreyas Iyer – 18 (41)
Day 2
Until the second day started no one thought that today was going to be one of the greatest days in the history of Cricket. India came out to bat after 221/4 and they lost their fifth wicket in just three runs and again it was Ajaz Patel who dismissed Wriddhiman Saha on the score of 27. After taking the wicket of Saha Ajaz Patel celebrated his fifth wicket and for sure he would have been so satisfied with his performance but he wasn’t aware of what he was going to achieve that day. In the next delivery, Ajaz stunned India and gave the sixth blow in the form of Ravichandran Aswin. In the 100th over of the Indian inning when Ajaz picked centurion Mayank Agrawal as his seventh wicket, the captain must have felt that the Indian team was looking helpless only in front of Ajaz, who knows, maybe something incredible might happen today. Then one by one he took another three wickets and numbered his name in the history books of Cricket. After taking the ninth wicket of Jayant Yadav in the 110th over, the eyes of the whole world were on that over of Ajaz and surly his heart would have been beating very fast but he didn’t burden himself and took the historical in the same over and became invincible.
5th Wicket: Wriddhiman Saha – 27 (62)
6th Wicket Ravichandran Aswin – 0 (1)
7th Wicket: Mayank Agrawal – 150 (311)
8th Wicket: Axar Patel – 52 (128)
9th Wicket: Jayant Yadav – 12 (31)
10th Wicket: Mohammad Siraj – 4 (3)
Even Ajaz’s historic performance could not save New Zealand from the loss and the Kiwis have lost the game by 372 runs. Centurion Mayank Agrawal becomes man of the match and Ravichandran Aswin with 14 wickets becomes man of the series. After the first draw match, India clinched the series by winning the last game. A New Zealand player who has taken 10 wickets in Mumbai coincidently belongs to Mumbai.
Also read: Laws of Cricket: understanding the first Law of Cricket ‘The Players’
