Permanently on the team-sheet

Adam Gilchrist's retirement after the home series against India in 2007-08 meant that Australia's ongoing tour of the Caribbean is the first Test series they are playing without him since his debut against Pakistan at the Gabba in 1999. Gilchrist did not miss a single match during his 96-Test career and holds the record for the longest uninterrupted career. This week's List looks at players whose entire careers did not have a break, and those who played the most consecutive matches.

Gilchrist's record is a testimony to his consistent form and fitness and there is a yawning gap between him and the second longest careers without a break. Tony Greig played 58 matches for England, featuring in all of their Tests between his debut in 1972 and 1977. Greig's England career was finished after he joined Kerry Packer and helped set up World Series Cricket, and he was replaced in the side by Ian Botham, who made his debut during Greig's last series, as England's allrounder.

New Zealand allrounder John Reid also played 58 consecutive Tests between 1949 and 1965 and by the end of his career he topped New Zealand's charts for most runs , wickets, catches and matches. Among current players, AB de Villiers, Kevin Pietersen and Brendon McCullum are closest, relatively speaking, to matching Gilchrist. de Villiers has so far played 40 Tests on the trot, while Pietersen and McCullum have played 38 and 34 respectively.

Longest uninterrupted career for a team - Tests

Player	Team	Mat		Start Match	Opposition	Scorecard		End Match	Opposition	Scorecard
AC Gilchrist	Australia	96		Nov 5, 1999	v Pakistan	Test 1467		Jan 28, 2008	v India	Test 1863
JR Reid	New Zealand	58		Jul 23, 1949	v England	Test 316		Jul 13, 1965	v England	Test 593
AW Greig	England	58		Jun 8, 1972	v Australia	Test 698		Aug 30, 1977	v Australia	Test 808
VT Trumper	Australia	48		Jun 1, 1899	v England	Test 60		Mar 1, 1912	v England	Test 120
AW Nourse	South Africa	45		Oct 11, 1902	v Australia	Test 75		Aug 19, 1924	v England	Test 157
MA Noble	Australia	42		Jan 1, 1898	v England	Test 54		Aug 11, 1909	v England	Test 105
B Mitchell	South Africa	42		Jun 15, 1929	v England	Test 181		Mar 9, 1949	v England	Test 313
AB de Villiers	South Africa	40		Dec 17, 2004	v England	Test 1728		Apr 13, 2008	v India	Test 1873
SJ McCabe	Australia	39		Jun 13, 1930	v England	Test 194		Aug 24, 1938	v England	Test 266
MH Richardson	New Zealand	38		Sep 12, 2000	v Zimbabwe	Test 1510		Nov 30, 2004	v Australia	Test 1723
KP Pietersen	England	38		Jul 21, 2005	v Australia	Test 1756		May 26, 2008	v New Zealand	Test 1876
JJ Kelly	Australia	36		Jun 22, 1896	v England	Test 50		Aug 16, 1905	v England	Test 87
WM Woodfull	Australia	35		Jun 12, 1926	v England	Test 163		Aug 22, 1934	v England	Test 237
BB McCullum	New Zealand	34		Mar 10, 2004	v South Africa	Test 1686		May 26, 2008	v England	Test 1876

Rahul Dravid played 93 Tests on the trot since the start of his career before missing the Ahmedabad Test against Sri Lanka in 2005. It remains the only game he's missed in a 122-match career.

Only three players - Allan Border, Mark Waugh and Sunil Gavaskar - have played more than 100 Tests in a row. Border missed the final Test of the 1978-79 Ashes after playing three matches and thereafter his career was uninterrupted for 153 matches - the longest consecutive streak in Tests.

Kapil Dev is the only player to appear twice in the table. He played 66 Tests in a row between October 1978 and December 1984 and another 65 consecutive Tests between January 1985 and March 1994. The break came during England's tour of India in 1984-85, when Kapil was dropped for the third Test at Eden Gardens because of a stroke that resulted in his dismissal in India's defeat in the second Test in Delhi.

The longest ongoing sequence is Mahela Jayawardene's 50 Tests , a run that began in November 2002. In a batsman-dominated table, the bowler with the most consecutive Tests is Anil Kumble, who played 60 between 1992 and 2000.

Sachin Tendulkar played 185 one-day internationals between April 1990 and 1998 which is the longest uninterrupted run in ODIs. Most of the other names in the table below - Andy Flower, Hansie Cronje, Mohammad Azharuddin - were integral players in their teams, which is why Russel Arnold's 115 ODIs in a row for Sri Lanka - the second most after Mahela Jayawardene - is a bit of a surprise. Arnold missed 45 matches in between his first four ODIs but then played all of Sri Lanka's matches between August 1999 and April 2003.

Former Zimbabwe batsman Murray Goodwin's 71-match career is the longest uninterrupted career in one-day internationals. The majority of the other names in the table are from minnow teams or teams with relatively recently granted Full Member status. The first players from nations that were Test teams before ODIs began in 1970-71 are wicketkeepers Vijay Dahiya and Paul Nixon, who played their 19 matches on the trot.