Cricket History and Facts

Chetan Sharma became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in ICC World Cup history when he achieved this feat against New Zealand in the 1987 World Cup at Nagpur. He dismissed Ken Rutherford, Ian Smith, and Ewen Chatfield in consecutive balls to create this historic record. Saqlain Mushtaq and Wasim Akram were great Pakistani bowlers but neither achieved a World Cup hat-trick.

Gautam Gambhir was the most expensive player in IPL 2011 auctions (IPL Season 4), bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for $2.4 million (approximately Rs. 11.04 crore). This was a record at that time.

Ricky Ponting (Australia) and Glenn McGrath (Australia) played the most World Cup matches before the 2011 tournament. Ponting held the record for most appearances, while McGrath's long career spanning 1996-2007 gave him extensive match experience. Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram, and Sanath Jayasuriya played many matches but not the most.

Shoaib Akhtar delivered cricket's first officially recorded 100+ mph ball (161.3 km/h) to England's Nick Knight during the 2003 World Cup match at Cape Town. Ricky Ponting was not batting in that match, Graeme Smith was South African, Paul Collingwood was English but not facing that delivery, and Sourav Ganguly was not involved.

Glenn McGrath (Australia) was the highest wicket-taker in World Cup cricket with 71 wickets before the 2011 tournament. He held this record through the 2007 World Cup. Wasim Akram was second with 55 wickets, Muttiah Muralitharan had fewer wickets in World Cups at that time, and Saqlain Mushtaq and Javagal Srinath were not leading wicket-takers.

In India's first World Cup match (1975 against England), Sunil Gavaskar scored 36 not out off 60 balls. This became infamous as one of the slowest ODI innings in history - India chased 335 and lost by 202 runs. 24, 48, 52, and 56 are all incorrect scores.

Geoff Marsh won the Cricket World Cup as a player for Australia in 1987 and again as Australia's coach in 1999. This makes him the only person to achieve both feats. Grahame Gooch, Greg Chappell, and Viv Richards never won as coaches.

This is a duplicate of question 108091 with the same content and answer. Geoff Marsh won the Cricket World Cup both as a player (1987) and coach (1999) for Australia. Graham Gooch, Greg Chappell, and Viv Richards never achieved this dual distinction. Note the same spelling errors: 'chappel' should be 'Chappell'.

In the 2003 Cricket World Cup, Parthiv Patel was part of the Indian squad but did not play a single match, as Rahul Dravid was the first-choice wicketkeeper. The other player who did not play was Sanjay Bangar, who was in the squad but didn't get a game. Ajit Agarkar, Dinesh Mongia, and Mohammad Kaif all played in the tournament.

Virender Sehwag became the first Indian to score a triple century in Test cricket when he made 309 runs against Pakistan in Multan (2004). He later scored another triple century (319) against South Africa. While Tendulkar holds many records, he never scored a Test triple century. Dhoni and Azharuddin also never reached 300 in a Test innings.