Unique Facts About The Sport Cricket

One of the standout characteristics of cricket, according to the former South African coach Bob Woolmer, is "the careful collection, archiving and publication of vast masses of figures in the form of cricketing statistics." Similar to baseball, cricket is a numbers game. Whether it's the best player of all time or the superstitious numbers that haunt many players, cricket has many unique facts and figures to keep the fans interested for hours.

The Origin of Cricket

Cricket historians have argued for centuries about the origins of the game. Some have argued it was Flemish immigrants who came over to England, others that it was Punjabi farmers in Asia or even King Edward II when he was a boy in Kent. Whatever the truth, the first recorded scorecard was from a match played at the Artillery Ground between the home team London and Slindon on June 2, 1744. Slindon won by 55 runs.
The Marylebone Cricket Club, founded in 1787, is the most famous cricket club in the world. The club history states in 1788 "it laid down a Code of Laws, requiring the wickets to be pitched 22 yards apart and detailing how players could be given out."

The Best Batsman

The player with the best batting average throughout a whole career, having batted in more than 20 innings, is the Australian Donald Bradman. He averaged 99.94 over 80 innings, with a total of 6,996 runs and 29 centuries. This was between the years 1928 and 1948. The player to come closest in recent years is the English batsman Jonathan Trott, who averages 64, but he's only batted in 29 innings through 2010.
The batsman with the highest score ever in international cricket is the West Indian player Brian Lara. He scored 400 not out in 2004 against England. He batted for 582 balls and 778 minutes.

The Best Bowler

Bowlers, over the course of their careers, are usually measured on the number of wickets they took. The player with the most test-match wickets of all time is the Sri Lankan spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan. Over a career spanning 133 matches, he took 800 wickets from 44,309 balls. His best performance in a single innings was nine wickets, out of a maximum of 10 available, conceding only 51 runs.
The best performance ever in one single match was by another spin bowler. Jim Laker of England, took 19 out of the 20 available over the course of a match and only conceded 90 runs.

Cricket Superstition

One of the most respected umpires in the history of cricket was David Shepard. He was famous for standing on one leg every time the number 111, named after Admiral Lord Nelson, was scored by a team. According to the Bleacher Report, this was because Nelson was "unlucky enough to have had only one eye, one hand and one leg, hence the 111." The number is considered bad luck.
In Australian cricket, the infamous number 87 is also a cause for worry and concern for individual batsman. It is referred to as the "devil's number" because it is 13 runs short of the all-important 100 runs every batsman wants to achieve.