Allan Robert Border the former Australian cricket captain who also once held the record of scoring maximum runs in test cricket was nicknamed as “A.B.”. He played 156 Test matches for Australian side, a record that was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh. This left hand batsman also achieved sporadic success as a part time left arm orthodox spinner and had amassed 11,174 Test runs including 27 centuries.

Born in Cremorne, a North Shore suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Border Border

became part of the under-age cricket teams and also played for Mosman Baseball Club, where he developed his fielding and horizontal bat shots. Border made hisTest debut by scoring 29 and was run out for a duck in the second innings while attempting a single.

His first Ashes tour was in 1981 where Border established his position in the squad. Sir Leonard Hutton called him the best left-handed batsman in the world and resulted in his selection as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1982.

Allan Border became the captain of the Australian team in 1984-85 season against West Indies in Adelaide, which Australia lost the match, which was followed by draw. The tide turned somewhat when draw, and then a win in the last two Tests.

The victory in the 1987 World Cup proved to be a turning point and heralded the start of more prosperous times for Border. In 1987–88, under his captaincy, Kangaroos defeated New Zealand for its first Test series victory in four years.

Border’s first Ashes win as captain came in 1989. Australia won 4–0, its first victory in a Test series abroad since 1977. Australia reinforced its superiority over England with a convincing 3–0 win in the 1990–91 Ashes series.Border finished his long lasting career by leading the first Australian team to play a Test series against South Africa after their return to international cricket.

Bookmark It

 Del.icio.us    digg  
 Facebook    Google Bookmarks    Stumble It    Technorati    Yahoo! My Web  
Hide Sites

Born as Pinnaduwage Aravinda de Silva on 17 October 1965 in Colombo, he is a former Sri Lankan cricketer, who is considered one of the finest batsmen produced by the country in world cricket.

De Silva made his debut in Test cricket in 1984 at Lord’s against England. In his early part of the career he was known as a dashing but inconsistent batsman, which earned him the nickname “Mad Max” for his tendency to get out to rash shots. But later he showed up matured and aggressive batting style. He also hold the history of having a successful season of first-class cricket for the English county Kent in 1995 marked a turning point in his

career. De Silva was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s triumph in the 1996 Cricket World Cup. He also has scored a century in each innings of a Test match on two separate occasions. Once of these doubles was 138 and 105, both undismissed, against Pakistan at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club in April 1997. De Silva’s highest test score of 267 happened at Basin Reserve in 1991 against New Zealand. He retired from international cricket in 2003.

Aravinda De Silva joined the English county side Kent in April 1995 after Carl Hooper left Kent to join the West Indies team for the summer. He showed an elegant batting performance in the county cricket owning a couple of brilliant scores taking kent to wins in a row. He was the third most prolific batsman of the County Championship in 1995 after Mark Ramprakash and Nasser Hussain with 1661 runs at an average of 59.32 and six centuries including the highest score of the season, 255.

One of the best performances from him came in the 1996 World Cup Final against Australia, where he took 3 wickets for 42 runs, two catches and then followed that with 107 not out with the bat to secure Sri Lanka a convincing 7 wicket victory. He was also chosen for the Man of the Match award. De Silva was recognized by Wisden in 2002 as the eight most significant batting performance in ODI cricket while his bowling was ranked 82nd in Wisden top 100 bowling chart.

Bookmark It

 Del.icio.us    digg  
 Facebook    Google Bookmarks    Stumble It    Technorati    Yahoo! My Web  
Hide Sites