1971
India won their first Test against West Indies at the 25th attempt in Port-of Spain. Dilip Sardesai’s hundred and half-centuries by Gavaskar and Eknath Solkar gave India a first-innings lead of 138. In the second innings, Sunil Gavaskar hit the winning runs and remained unbeaten at 67. S Venkataraghavan took five in the second innings.
1982
Saleem Malik became the youngest man to score a century on Test debut. In the first Test against Sri Lanka at Karachi, Malik, aged 18 years and 328 days, scored an unbeaten 100.
1985
India won the World Championship of Cricket by beating Pakistan in the final at the MCG. Ravi Shashtri was declared the Champion f Champions in the tournament.
1998
Fanie de Villiers’, who formed the lethal pace combination with Allan Donald for South Africa played his last Test. His career spanned for 18 Tests in which he took 85 wickets. In his last match, he produced a gem of a performance when he demolished Pakistan single-handedly by taking his career best of 6 wickets in 23 runs.
2002
Sri Lanka were crowned Asian Test champions after an eight-wicket win over Pakistan in Lahore. Sri Lanka led in the first-innings by 294, thanks to Kumar Sangakkara’s first double-hundred. Pakistan was no way near them in the first innings. However, in the second innings, they reached 324 based on Inzamam-ul-Haq’s 99 and Shahid Afridi’s 70. But Sri Lanka needed just 32 to win. Muttiah Muralitharan took four in each innings. Mohammad Sami of Pakistan took a hat-trick when he dismissed the last three Sri Lankan batsmen in the first innings.
