1934
Nari Contractor, a dependable opener for India, was born on this day. Contractor made his Test debut against New Zealand in Bombay. But his bright cricket career was cut short due to a fatal injury at head from a ball of Charlie Griffith in Bridgetown in 1961-62. His skull was fractured and his life was at the dead end for many hours. He recovered after an elaborate treatment, came back to play first-class cricket but never played Test cricket again.
1952
Viv Richards was born today. The original master blaster of the game, the coolest man with the bat chewing the gum is regarded as the most terrific hitter of the cricket ball. His innumerable memorable performance has given cricket a new meaning- some of the most noted of them all are 189 against England in 1984, 138 in 1979, 100 off 56 balls in 1986 that is the fastest Test century. Richards never really wore helmets and was knighted in 1999 to be referred as Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards.
1987
Sunil Gavaskar became the first cricketer in Test cricket to complete 10,000 runs. It was his 124th Test match played against Pakistan in Ahmedabad.
