June 12 down the years

The Karachi streetfighter

Birth of only the second man whose Test average never fell below 50

Javed Miandad played in a record six World Cups  •  Getty Images

Javed Miandad played in a record six World Cups  •  Getty Images

1957
Pakistan's greatest batter is born. From the moment Javed Miandad caressed 163 in his first Test innings, against New Zealand in Lahore in 1976-77, his career was touched by genius. He is one of only two men (England's Herbert Sutcliffe is the other) to have a Test average that never dropped below 50. Miandad made 206 in his fourth Test innings, and six double-hundreds in all. The only blot on his copybook is a modest record against West Indies - an average of 29 from 16 Tests - but it was against them that he played perhaps his greatest innings, a match-winning 114 in Guyana in 1987-88. There was always the suggestion that you had to knock over all three stumps to get Miandad out at home: he was lbw 15 times in overseas Tests before it happened even once in Pakistan, but he was comfortably one of the finest batters of his generation. Miandad, who also played in a record six World Cups, loved a scrap: most famously, he waved his bat threateningly at Dennis Lillee in Perth in 1983-84, and mimicked Indian wicketkeeper Kiran More's noisy appealing by jumping and shrieking during the World Cup match in Sydney in 1991-92.
1956
Terry Alderman, born today, will always be remembered as the man who reduced Graham Gooch's technique to rubble, particularly in 1989, when Gooch's form was so poor that he asked to be left out. In all, he nailed Gooch seven times. Alderman, the definitive wicket-to-wicket bowler, was devastating in two series in England, in 1981 and 1989 (he missed 1985 because of a rebel tour), though he never had it quite so good anywhere else. He took almost as many wickets in 12 Tests in England (83) as he did in 29 Tests elsewhere (87). Not surprisingly, therefore, Alderman was a success for Kent and Gloucestershire. His sister Denise also played cricket for Australia.
1939
Birth of the only man to be no-balled for throwing in a Lord's Test. South African paceman Geoff Griffin never recovered from being called no fewer than 11 times in the 1960 Test - he did not bowl again on the tour, and never played another Test. It was a real rollercoaster ride: earlier in the match, only his second Test, he'd taken a hat-trick.
1983
A day Winston Davis of West Indies is unlikely to forget - he hurried Australia to defeat with 7 for 51 in a World Cup match in Headingley. They were, at the time, the best figures in one-day internationals. Better still, this was only his second ODI. It was a bit of a false dawn, though: it took Davis another 12 matches to take his next seven wickets.
1973
A tense win for England in an extraordinary Test at Trent Bridge. Having been skittled for 97 in their first innings, New Zealand looked to have absolutely no chance of chasing 479 to win. But Bev Congdon (176) and Vic Pollard (116) made a great fist of things, and at 402 for 5 a sensational result looked on. In the end England triumphed by just 38 runs.
1930
Birth of Jim Burke, the stalwart Australian opener of the 1950s. He played 24 Tests, but never really hit the heights of his debut, when he made 101 not out against England in Adelaide in 1950-51. Burke was a dashing No. 6 then, but was dropped and went down the Ravi Shastri route, returning as a scrapper of an opener. He was ensconced at No. 2 when he made a Test-best 189 against South Africa in Cape Town in 1957-58. Burke didn't bowl his offspinners often, which was probably a good thing - his action, described by Ian Peebles as "like a policeman applying his truncheon to a particularly short offender's head" - was extremely suspect. He was also the only man to escape the clutches of Jim Laker when Laker took 19 wickets in the Old Trafford Test of 1956. Burke committed suicide in his native Sydney in 1979.
1935
Australia's youngest male cricketer is born. Ian Craig made his first-class debut for New South Wales aged only 16 - and within a year he was fast-tracked into the Test side. He looked the part, making 53 and 47 on debut against South Africa in Melbourne in 1952-53. Five years later he was Australia's youngest captain too, but the Bradman comparisons wore him down. He played his last Test at 22, and his last first-class match at 26.
1947
Tom Brierley made 116 not out for Lancashire against Glamorgan at Liverpool, equalling his career best... which had come in 1938 for Glamorgan against Lancashire at Old Trafford.
1964
Birth of the Essex offspinner Peter Such, who had a storming Test debut but was soon rendered impotent like many other modern-day English fingerspinners. Such took 6 for 67 in his first Test innings, against Australia at Old Trafford in 1993, and added another five-for against them in Sydney almost six years later. He only made 11 Test appearances in total, all against Australia and New Zealand. Such was also a magnificently inept batter, who on his Test debut played Merv Hughes from close to square leg. His last Test innings, against New Zealand at Old Trafford in 1999, was a 72-minute duck. It brought him a standing ovation.
1959
Birth of the man who took the first one-day international hat-trick. Pakistani seamer Jalal-ud-Din only played eight one-dayers (despite a record of 14 wickets at an average of 15) and six Tests. He was playing just his second ODI when he wrote his name in the record books, getting rid of Rod Marsh, Bruce Yardley and Geoff Lawson with successive deliveries in Hyderabad in 1982-83.
1976
Birth of Zimbabwe left-arm spinner Ray Price, who nearly bowled his side to victory with a ten-wicket haul against West Indies in a Test in Harare in 2003, only to be thwarted by a last-wicket stand by Ridley Jacobs and Fidel Edwards. He took nine more in the next Test, but soon after, threw in his lot with Heath Streak and the rebel cricketers, and went to England to play county cricket. He returned from national exile in 2008, when the board offered him a central contract, and went on to become a very useful one-day bowler, ranked No. 2 in the world in the format in 2009.
1990
Mike Atherton announced himself on the world stage with a maiden century, in his third Test - a classical 151 against New Zealand in a rain-affected draw at Trent Bridge. At the age of 22, he was at the time England's youngest century-maker since David Gower 12 years earlier - a record broken by Alastair Cook, who scored his maiden hundred at 21 years and 69 days in 2006.
1961
Birth of New Zealand allrounder Rod Latham. He scored his maiden Test hundred in only his second Test, against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in 1992, but he played only two more Tests after that. Latham was sent in as an opener during the World Cup earlier that year, partnering Mark Greatbatch as New Zealand set a trend with their explosive starts. However, Latham's ODI career was restricted to only 33 games. His son Tom, a Test opener, also played for New Zealand.
Other birthdays
1860 Jack Edwards (Australia)
1861 William Attewell (England)
1948 Norbert Phillip (West Indies)
1960 Rajinder Singh Ghai (India)
1967 Neil Maxwell (Fiji)
1968 Trevor Penney (Zimbabwe)