Fifty landmark cricket moments: how many have ESPNcricinfo's writers watched?
Our writers pick their favourite moments and the ones they missed
ESPNcricinfo staff
21-Jun-2020
Where were you when Brian Lara was laying into Australia's attack in Bridgetown in 1999? • Ben Radford/Getty Images
Last week, we polled fans on how many of these 50 landmark cricket moments of the last 25 years they had seen live/on TV. Our writers took the poll as well. In this article they thump their chests about their scores out of 50, talk about their favourite moments, the ones they missed, and their choice for a moment that should have made the list.
One moment I wish had watched but didn't
Sambit Bal (45/50): AB de Villiers' 31-ball hundred against West Indies, 2015.
Andrew Fidel Fernando (29/50): VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid's epic stand in Kolkata, 2001. I stopped following on the third day because the result seemed a foregone conclusion.
Osman Samiuddin (35/50): Brian Lara's unbeaten 153 against Australia in 1999 and Kusal Perera and Vishwa Fernando's last-wicket stand in Durban last year.
Andrew Miller (40/50): Ben Stokes at Headingley, 2019. Shockingly, I was on holiday for that one, but I got the full detonation of reaction the moment we returned from the beach. I had to read the entirety of Alan Gardner's ball-by-ball in retrospect just to get a sense of what the hell had happened.
Danyal Rasool (36/50): Shoaib Akhtar's dismissals of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid off consecutive balls in the 1999 Kolkata Test.
The standout memory from among those of the moments I was at the ground for
Sidharth Monga (36/50): Carlos Brathwaite's 6, 6, 6, 6 at the 2016 T20 World Cup final.
Nagraj Gollapudi (39/50) The 2011 World Cup final at the Wankhede.
Firdose Moonda (35/50) The 2015 World Cup semi-final between New Zealand and South Africa, for its drama and because it changed South African cricket.
Fernando: Hard to pick just one, so I'll throw in my top three: Wahab Riaz v Shane Watson (the most electric passage of cricket I've witnessed) in the 2015 World Cup quarter-final. Grant Elliott hitting Dale Steyn in the semi-final a few days later (the noise coming out of that stadium was unforgettable). And Perera and Vishwa Fernando's epic last-wicket stand, which, over a year later, I still can't believe actually happened.
Bal: Elliott's six against Steyn in the 2015 World Cup semi-final.
Miller: By the barest of margins, the 2019 World Cup final. But Herschelle Gibbs' six sixes, on the tiny island of St Kitts at the 2007 World Cup, is probably the most niche event that I witnessed in the flesh.
Samiuddin: The Lord's World Cup final of 2019.
Favourite moment I followed on ESPNcricinfo
Mohammad Isam (34/50): When Brendon McCullum became the first man to score a Test triple-hundred for New Zealand, in Wellington in 2014.
Fernando: A few friends and I were climbing Adam's Peak - one of Sri Lanka's holiest and most storied mountains - just as McCullum was nearing his triple-hundred in Wellington. We were almost at the summit, with mountains shrouded in mist spread out before us, and lakes twinkling in the morning sun, when the weak internet signal finally confirmed McCullum had completed the triple.
Moonda: I remember sitting in a café in London, following Harmanpreet Kaur's 171 in the Australia-India women's World Cup semi-final in 2017.
Miller: VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid in Kolkata, 2001. I was about a month into my first job at wisden.com (which would merge with Cricinfo two years later), and ball-by-ball was the only means to do the stand justice. I do remember, though, that Wisden's chief technology officer had the Doordarshan feed streaming into his laptop, which felt like nothing short of witchcraft.
Monga: Kevin O'Brien against England in the 2011 World Cup (shamefully, the only moment of these 50 that I followed on ESPNcricinfo).
A moment I watched but had forgotten about
Fernando: Or rather, I forgot how I didn't follow it. I was refreshing the ESPNcricinfo scorecard every five seconds after Sachin Tendulkar got into the 180s in Gwalior in 2010. Unfortunately, the traffic melted the servers just before he got to the first ODI double-hundred.
Samiuddin: Tamim Iqbal scoring Bangladesh's first Test century at Lord's, in 2010.
Bal: Gillespie's double-hundred, in Chittagong in 2006 - I only saw bits of it on TV.
Moonda: Sachin Tendulkar's double-hundred in an ODI, the first. Doesn't seem like such an unusual thing now.
Rasool: Zimbabwe beating India at the 1999 World Cup.
Isam: Misbah-ul-Haq's push-ups at Lord's.
One moment that the poll ought to have included but didn't
Monga: The Steyn v Tendulkar battle, Newlands, 2011.
Bal: Courtney Browne and Ian Bradshaw winning the Champions Trophy for West Indies in 2004.
Isam: Mohammad Ashraful's hundred against Australia in Cardiff, 2005.
Gollapudi: Two, if I may: both fast Test centuries, both against Australia. First, Shivnarine Chanderpaul in 2003 in Georgetown, and then Misbah-ul-Haq in Abu Dhabi.
Moonda: Zimbabwe beating Australia in the 2007 T20 World Cup.
Fernando: The first T20 international - New Zealand v Australia at Eden Park - 2005.
How many of our list of 50 great cricket moments from recent history did you watch?