The theme of this article is the dates of birth of players, limited to those who have played men's Tests. I recently secured this bit of personal data through the combined efforts of three of my readers - Ruchit Herath, Ivan Joseph and Gopal Sharma. My sincere appreciation for their help, especially Ruchit, who also helped me in a major corrections exercise of the data.
So, I wove a fun article with the DoB as the fulcrum. I am aware that ESPNcricinfo and other fine cricket sites provide this data and provide tables on the oldest and youngest themes. Even on these, my take is a little different. The fun, for me, was in thinking of all the possibilities. The execution was relatively easy. One relevant observation: I have represented the ages as numbers with decimals. It may not be the standard way of representation. However, this method let me do the arithmetic work comfortably.
There are 3265 men's Test players at the last count and 365 days and 12 months in the year. So, statistically speaking, each day should have around nine entries and each month, around 270-plus entries. In this stream of data spread across nearly two centuries (from 1827 to 2006), it is truly amazing how the data fits within the sets of accepted statistical norms. The first part of the article is a narrative-based one and does not have any tables. All references are specific and semi-anecdotal. The second part is the normal table-based one. And when I take a Test for analysis, barring the first Test, I have only considered the first day, since the duration of a Test is indeterminate.
1. The first Test ever
The inaugural Test started on March 15, 1877. After three days' play, there was a rest day. The match was interestingly poised. Despite a first-innings lead of 49, Australia were in trouble at 83 for 9 and were ahead only by 132 runs. Then there was a rest day on March 18. Around 700km to the west of Melbourne, in the Adelaide suburb of Hindmarsh, Clem Hill was born to Henry John Hill and Rebecca Hill, on the rest day. He went on to become one of the greatest initial-period batters for Australia. He is known for his three consecutive scores of 99, 98, and 97, but more for his all-time great innings of 188, which was in the top ten of my initial top 100 best batting performances list and is now placed in the top 50 in my current BAT-100 list. He was the only cricketer born during the inaugural Test. Australia pulled off a famous 45-run win, and it is certain that the Hill family, including little Clem, barely a day old, would have celebrated.
2. Leap Day
Leap Day - February 29 - occurs only once in four years. As such, the frequency of a player born on this day should be around one-fourth of the nine or so projected per day. Lo and behold, we have exactly two players born on this special day. Alf Gover, the famous Surrey player and coach, was born on February 29, 1908 and Gavin Stevens of Australia, who played four Tests, in the subcontinent, was born on February 29, 1932.
3. The month division
This should follow on expected lines. That means that around 270 (~3255/12) should have been born each month. The split more or less follows this pattern with most of the months falling in the middle band either side of 270. The outlier months are January, with 233, and April, with 240. At the other end, December and October have 320 and 319 players. These are more than 10% away from the mean. Why this should happen is beyond my comprehension. Maybe some sociologists might have an explanation.
4. The split by date
Logically, dates should follow similar patterns. Each date should have around nine players born on that day. About 7-8 and 10-11 are fine, but anything outside these is an outlier. Let us look at the numbers here. Three dates in January - 4, 18, and 22 - have only three players born on them. Also, three players share April 26 as their birthday. Coming to the other side, December 6 has 21 players making their debut in the world. The three dates with 19 entries each are December 1, September 5, and October 14. Whether these dates have any significance, or it's just the way the dice have fallen is outside my layman-sociologist's view.
5. Classified by year
The earliest-born Test player, James Southerton, was born on November 16, 1827. Then another 12 years passed before the next players, Nat Thomson and Ned Gregory were born, amazingly on the same day, on May 5, 1839. Then another two years passed before the next players, three of them, were born in 1841. After that each year has had at least one player born. A bit sparse during the early years but settling down by the time the first Test was played in 1877. That means we are talking of around 130 years between 1877 and 2006, when the most recent Test player was born. This would mean that each year should have around 25 players.
Well, we have another spate of outliers. 1981, 1986, 1990, 1991, and 1993 had 50 or more players born in each of these years. Why should these happen?
This time, instead of taking the sociological route, I have taken the cricket analyst's route. I analysed the Test scene a couple of decades after these years. The year 2001 saw the maximum Tests ever, 55 to be exact played. And barring 2007 and 2011, the World Cup years, the next 15 years saw between 40 and 50 Tests being played. That means that there was a spurt in Test activity and maybe this gave those born either side of 1990 greater opportunities to play Test cricket. This seems to be an acceptable explanation, that the difference lies in the opportunities being given to play Test cricket. And it also helped that three new countries were inducted into Test cricket during this period.
I have plotted the 180 values on a simple graph so that readers can get an idea of the distribution.
6. Born on the same day
Surprisingly, the number of players who were born on the same day is quite high. No fewer than 129 pairs of players were born the same day. The most famous pairs are the twins, Steve and Mark Waugh (born on June 2, 1965), James and Hamish Marshall (born on February 15, 1979), and Craig and Jamie Overton (born on April 10, 1994).
Only two trios of players were born on the same day. Wellington Masakadza, Akila Dananjaya, and Mitchell Swepson were born on October 4, 1993. Mohammed Shami, Iftikhar Ahmed, and Paul Stirling were born on September 3, 1990. There is no quartet born on the same day.
Now, on to the table-based discussions.
1. The grandpas' teams
In 1930, in the Test against West Indies in Kingston, England fielded a real Dad's Army. George Gunn and Wilfred Rhodes were above 50, and Patsy Hendren, Nigel Haig, and Ewart Astill would not see 40 again. Bill Voce, at just over 20 years, valiantly tried to lower the age, but the average remained 37.5 years. In two other Tests in the same tour, England managed to cross the mark of 37 years. In 1909, there was only one player who had crossed 40 but most others were in the late-30s and the team nearly tipped the 37 years mark. In 1921, three 40-plus players helped England go well past 36 years. A couple of years before Don Bradman's debut, Australia fielded teams with an average exceeding 35 years. Warren Bardsley, Charles Macartney, and Arthur Mailey were all over 40.
2. The youngsters' teams
Now, for the other end of the spectrum. The youngest team ever was fielded by Zimbabwe in 2005 - average age just over 21 years. There were four teenagers, and the oldest player, Mark Vermeulen, had just crossed 25. They fielded three similar teams around the same time. Bangladesh fielded a very young team in 2002. There were six players below 20. The oldest, Habibul Bashar, was not yet 30. It is no wonder the average age was around 21.5.
3. The teams with close-together ages
This is a quirky little table - which team was the most close-knit in terms of player ages. I have resorted to the time-honoured technique of using the Mean Standard Variation, and the dimension-less Coefficient of Variation (SD/Mean). Everyone knows that this is the most effective way to determine distribution patterns. Look at the team that New Zealand fielded against Sri Lanka at the Basin Reserve in 2023. The mean is 31.89 years and the SD is a very low 1.15 years. The CoV is a very low 0.036, indicating very little variation in the distribution. The age range was 29.4 to 34.3 with eight players in the narrow band between 31 and 33. They fielded a similar team a few months earlier. This time, all 11 players were between 30 and 35. In 1939, South Africa fielded a team with a CoV of 0.051. All 11 players were aged between 27 and 33. And the Indian team around 2019 had all 11 players between the ages of 28 and 33, with Wriddhiman Saha being the exception.
4. The teams with wide-apart ages
For those teams that could have had fathers and sons, or masters and pupils, playing together. Again, the CoV comes to our aid. It is common knowledge that a high CoV indicates a widespread distribution. The greatest variations occurred in Melbourne in Australia's 1931-32 series against South Africa. There was Bert Ironmonger, a few days short of his 50th birthday, Clarrie Grimmett, who had already crossed 40, Bradman and Jack Fingleton, just past 23, and Stan McCabe and Laurie Nash, just past 21. The CoV was a huge 0.283. There were other teams, from England and South Africa, which had such widely varying age matrices. The 1930 England team had a very high SD exceeding 10, but was tempered a little with a high mean.
5. New Year's Day birthdays
New Year's Day is significant, whichever part of the globe we reside in. If we assume that the world has a population of around 8 billion, we can assume that around 1/400th of that number, around 20 million, will be celebrating their birthdays on January 1. Cricketers are no exception. We should expect around ten Test cricketers to celebrate their birthdays on the day the rest of the world celebrates. Well, we are almost there. A total of 11 cricketers were born on January 1. That list is given above. Surprisingly, Bangladesh leads this table with three players born on New Year's Day. The fast bowler Robin Singh in the list below that is not the same as the India allrounder Robin Singh born in the West Indies.
6. Birthday debuts
These are the players who had a double celebration on their birthday as they made their Test debut. The first one was Bransby Cooper, in the first Test ever. He was born on March 15, 1844, and walked in to bat on March 15, 1877. He scored 18 runs, did not bowl a ball, and never played Test cricket again. Ten other players made their debut on their birthdays, with varying degrees of success. The last to do was Shan Masood. He was born on October 14, 1989 and made his debut on October 14, 2013. He scored 75 in the first innings and helped Pakistan beat South Africa in Abu Dhabi. He has played in 45 more Tests and is the current captain. One could say that Cooper had the most forgettable Test career and Masood the best, among these 12 players.
7. The oldest debutants
In the first-ever Test, James Southerton made his debut at the age of 49 years and change. This is the age at which some umpires consider retiring. He took three wickets. A fortnight later, he took four wickets in the second Test, but was not selected again. Ironmonger made his debut at over 46 years and crossed 50 in playing another 13 Tests and taking a total of 74 wickets. It is of interest to note that another player, by the name of Bradman, made his debut in the same Test. Don Blackie and Miran Baksh are the others to debut after they crossed 45 years.
8. The youngest debutants
Hasan Raza of Pakistan played his first Test when he was 14 years and 7 months. He scored 27 runs. Then he had gaps but played six more Tests, scored 235 runs, with a brace of fifties against Australia in Sharjah in 2002, top-scoring in both innings. Mushtaq Mohammad played his first Test when was 15 years and four months. He did not do much then, but turned into an excellent allrounder eventually. He played in 56 more Tests and scored 3643 runs while taking 79 wickets. Mohammad Sharif played for Bangladesh when he was 15 years and four months.
The number of times they played in a Test before they turned 17 is indicated in the table. Sharif played eight Tests before he reached 17. Tendulkar played seven Testsbefore 17. Nasim-ul-Ghani, Talha Jubair and Naseem Shah played five, five, and four Tests respectively in their 17th year. Raza played one more Test in his 16th year. This list is dominated by players from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
9. Players aged 50-plus
These players played in Tests after they had passed 50 years. This list has 13 names. Three players, Rhodes, Gunn and Ironmonger made four appearances each while WG Grace played once. Rhodes had gone past 52 when he played all these four Tests. In his last Test, in Kingston, he bowled 45 impeccable overs for 39 runs and took two wickets. Not bad for someone who had seen over 19,000 sunrises. The other batters featured here had not reached their 51st birthdays.
10. The birthday-sharers within a Test
It is certain that there will be players who share the same birthdays (the date and month, not the year) playing in the same Test. The immediate example that comes to mind is the Waugh twins, who played together in no fewer than 108 Tests. Let us not forget that they shared the year also. To have better insights, I started looking at the question of such instances deeply. I found that there were multiple possibilities - three batters sharing the same birthday and multiple pairs of players sharing their birthdays. Let us look at these now.
The entries are self-explanatory. Let us skip England players (but not forgetting that Jack Crapp and Jack Young shared the same year also) and West Indian entries and move on to the very interesting Indian trios: Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah share the same birthday (December 6) and played together in five Tests. Amazingly, Karun Nair has the same birthday, and he, Jadeja, and Bumrah played together in two Tests. This Ripley instance continues. Anshul Kamboj also was born on December 6 and played in one Test with Jadeja and Bumrah. Imagine, five current Indian Test players share the same birthday.
Now, we move on to the instances of three pairs sharing the same birthdays. The instances of two pairs sharing within the same team are too many. So, I have only featured the triple occurrences.
Geoff Boycott and Jim Parks shared their birthdays, as did Ken Barrington and Fred Titmus, and Ted Dexter and Jack Flavell, And these six players played in two Tests together. Tom Cartwright and John Price shared their birthdays. And the Boycott/Parks and Barrington/Titmus pairs played with this pair in two Tests.
Finally, an Australian occurrence of recent vintage. The three pairs, Matthew Hayden and Greg Blewett (same year also), Steve and Mark Waugh, and Paul Reiffel and Jason Gillespie, who shared their birthdays, played together in a single Test. These analyses are limited to the player's own team-mates. If I extend these to the other team's players, the list would be much longer.
11. Debut players with team-mates who played before they were born
Finally, a nice little gem, suggested by my long-standing internal editor, V Krishnan. This relates to players making their debut in a Test while one or more compatriots had made their Test debuts before these players were even born. Two of Bill Voce's team-mates, Gunn and Rhodes, made their Test debuts before Voce was born. This is one of two such instances in the same Test. Rhodes made his debut more than ten years before Voce was born. Imran Khan made his debut before four of his team-mates, in four different Tests, Aaqib Javed, Waqar Younis, Zahid Fazal, and Moin Khan, were born. John Traicos had made his debut before Grant Flower and Alistair Campbell were born. And Sachin Tendulkar has three such instances - with three pace bowlers (Jaydev Unadkat, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shami). And marvel at those two spinners from Chennai - S Venkataraghavan and L Sivaramakrishnan - providing such an instance. Again, this analysis is limited to the player's own team-mates.
Potpourri
I'd say that this article itself is one large potpourri collection. I had great fun in thinking, planning and compiling it and I am sure the readers will be equally pleased to see this irreverent look at Test cricket. However, I will present another couple nuggets of interesting information.
Bruce Dooland of Australia made his debut on January 1, 1947, and played his last Test starting on January 1, 1948. Sydney Burke of South Africa made his debut on January 1, 1962, and played his last Test starting on January 1, 1965 . These two are the only players who started and ended their careers with Tests starting on the New Year's Day. Shane Warne (and two others, Charl Langeveldt and Paul Harris) almost did a similar thing, except that their starting and ending Tests were on January 2, the current New Year's Test schedule. And there are 17 other instances of players starting and ending their careers on the same day. Of course, not counting the 485 players who played a single Test in their entire careers, satisfying this criteria.
The reference to one-Test careers directs me do a short take on the length of careers. Wilfred Rhodes made his debut at 21 and played his last Test at 52, in a career lasting nearly 31 years. Brian Close made his debut at 18 and played his last Test at 45 in a career lasting 27 years. Frank Woolley made his debut at 22 and played his last Test at 47 , in a career lasting just over 25 years.
An important note on lapsed days
Readers who compare my information with some other table, say, from ESPNcricinfo, will find a discrepancy in the days value. That is because I have adopted my own method in determining the years/days. The traditional method is to determine lapsed days (LDays) through some standard function and then set the years/days. One approximate method is to set the years as "LDays/365" and days as "LDays - Years*365". This is a rough calculation since every four years, the year has 366 days. A more accurate calculation is to set the years as "LDays/(1461/4)" and Days as "LDays - Years*(1461/4)", remembering that 1461/4 is equal to 365.25.
However, I have adopted my own very accurate method. Let us say we are calculating the time lapsed between October 29, 1877 and April 3, 1930. These are the figures for Rhodes in his last Test. I work on the assumption that the year has to be taken as a complete unit. I determine that from October 29, 1877 to October 28, 1929, exactly 52 years have passed. The question of leap years does not come in. A year is a year always, irrespective of whether it has 365 or 366 days. Then I determine the days for the part year period from October 29, 1929, to April 3, 1930. It is very easy to determine. It comes to 156 days. A slight variation exists for, say, Bert Ironmonger. The key dates are April 7, 1882, and December 30, 1932. This comes to 50 full years from April 7, 1882, to April 6, 1932. Then 267 days between April 7, 1932, and December 30, 1932 (these are in the same year). This method is fool-proof and works in all cases since I avoid the interim step of determining lapsed days.
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