Indians who played an International match at their home ground on birthday

Not every day do Indian players get an opportunity to play at their home ground given the venues the country utilizes for hosting International matches and the recent upsurge in the number of venues adds more significance to the chance of playing in front of the local crowd. Indian off-spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin had an opportunity of taking the field on his home ground Chennai, which will be hosting India-Australia 1st ODI.

The match is scheduled to be played on September 17, the day Ashwin will celebrate his 31st birthday. But the selectors’ decision to keeping the star spinner off the limited-overs grid took away the rare instance of an Indian playing an International game on his birthday in front of the home crowd.

Here we look at instances where Indian players got to play at their home venue on birthday.

ODI cricket:

Suresh Raina is the only Indian to feature in an ODI on his birthday at home. Raina celebrated his 27th birthday on 27 November 2013 when India took on West Indies at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur. Raina scored 34 off 43 balls with three fours before getting out when India were nine runs away from a win in the series decider while chasing a target of 264. They won the game by five wickets with 23 balls to spare.

T20I cricket:

Yuvraj Singh featured in a T20I against Sri Lanka at the PCA IS Bindra Stadium, Mohali in 2009 on his 28th birthday on December 12th. The Sri Lankan team posted a huge 206-run total after batting first while Yuvraj, with 3/23 in his three overs, tried to restrict the visiting side to a lesser total.

The birthday boy came out to bat in front of his home crowd when India needed 99 runs in nine overs. Yuvraj played a blistering inning of 60 from just 25 balls with three fours and five sixes. He completed his fifty in just 20 balls and remained unbeaten to see them chase down the total with five balls in hand. The left-hander was awarded the man of the match for his all-round display.

Test cricket:

Gujarat born Brijesh Patel played a Test match at Bangalore on his 22nd birthday, the home ground of the Karnataka team where Patel’s cricket career began. The 3rd day of the Test match on November 24 against West Indies was his birthday. The local boy ended up scoring only two runs on his birthday. India ended on losing side in the game by 267 runs.

In a similar instance, Dattu Phadkar, a Kolhapur born player featured in Mumbai Test against West Indies on his 23rd birthday in 1948 when he was a part of Mumbai team. However, Phadkar was playing for Maharashtra until the 1943/44 season before moving to the Bombay side.

Mohinder Amarnath got a chance to play a Test match starting on his 33rd birthday in Jalandhar, Punjab. India took on the Pakistan in the game on September 24, Mohinder’s birthday; he didn’t get to bat or bowl. Amarnath was born in Patiala, which is also a part of Punjab and at some distance from Jalandhar. Amarnath was a part of the Delhi domestic team at the time of the Test as he left his home team Punjab after the 1973/74 season.

Shikhar Dhawan celebrated his 30th birthday at his home ground Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi during the Test match against South Africa on December 5th. Dhawan walked out to bat in the 2nd innings on his birthday, which was the 3rd day of the Test. He scored 21 runs off 86 balls before getting out to Morne Morkel. India won the game by a huge 337-run margin.