Knott's landing

Alan Knott: one of England's finest wicketkeepers... and not a bad batsman either © Getty Images Enlarge

1946
Birth of England's most prolific wicketkeeper. The popular Alan Knott was a master with the gloves - nimble, precise and smooth in everything that he did. He formed a famous partnership with Derek Underwood for Kent and England, and he could bat too. Knott made five Test hundreds and four scores in the nineties. His range of strokes made him an extremely dangerous counter-attacker. He would have made more than his 95 Test appearances but for his dalliances with Kerry Packer, which led to him missing three whole seasons.

1972
The fourth-highest opening partnership in Test history, and the only time West Indies have ever been looking at a total of 387 for 0. New Zealand's Glenn Turner and Terry Jarvis were the history-makers, in the fourth Test in Guyana. Jarvis made 182, his only Test hundred, and Turner a mighty 259. West Indies' attack was pretty modest - Clive Lloyd came on first-change for the first time in his Test career, and bowled 36 overs - but it was still a remarkable effort, particularly from Turner, whose innings was the highest by a New Zealander until Martin Crowe made 299 in 1990-91. Turner also made 259 in his next innings, against Guyana two weeks later, and in all made four double-centuries on the tour.

1984
A raucous crowd in Antigua watched two of their favourite sons, Viv Richards and Richie Richardson, smash Australia all round the St John's ground. The two added 308 for the third wicket, after which Australia - who had to win the match to square the series - were dead and buried.

1995
Sachin Tendulkar cracked his fourth one-day century to give India an eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup match in Sharjah, and in the process became the youngest man to score 3000 one-day runs in ODIs. He was 15 days short of his 22nd birthday at the time.

1848
Birth of the 35th MacKinnon of MacKinnon, who is by three years the longest-lived Test cricketer, dying 41 days short of his 99th birthday (click here for full list). Francis MacKinnon was a sound batsman, who played for Kent, of whom he was later president, and England in one Test in Melbourne in 1878-79. He made just 0 and 5, and in the first innings was the second wicket in the first Test hat-trick, taken by Fred Spofforth.

Other birthdays
1867 Percie Charlton (Australia)
1876 George Shepstone (South Africa)
1929 Ronald Haddrick (Australia)
1962 Tony Reid (USA)
1983 Tareq Aziz (Bangladesh)