November 11 – When Cape Town stood on one leg

November 11 witnessed one of the rarest ever instances in history and a couple of significant moments in Pakistan cricket history.

2011 – One, one and one everywhere

After an exciting day of Test cricket where a total of 23 wickets fell, the South Africa-Australia Test match in Cape Town saw another bizarre moment when the time on scorecard read 11:11 on November 11th of 2011 read as 11/11/11 when written in DD (date) / MM (month) / YY (year) format. To add more significance to the moment, South Africa needed 111 runs more to win at the particular moment. On this special occasion, Cricket South Africa asked the sportive Newlands crowd to stand on one leg.

Earlier, South Africa after electing to bowl first, restricted Australia to 284 a total which wasn’t possible if not for a Michael Clarke’s special innings of 151. Shane Watson and Ryan Harris picked up nine wickets between them as South Africa bowled were out for just 96 in their first innings. The South African pace trio of Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel came out all guns blazing to dismantle the Aussies to just 47, who were 21/9 at a stage but escaped from recording the lowest total in Test cricket thanks to the last pair of Peter Siddle and Nathan Lyon.

Centuries from Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla helped South Africa chasing down the 236-run target comfortably before the lunch on the 3rd day for the loss of only two wickets. Vernon Philander, who made his debut in Tests with this game, was named as the Man of the Match for his eight wickets in the game including a 5-fer in the 2nd innings.

1969 – New Zealand’s maiden Test series win

On 11th November 1969, New Zealand sealed their first ever series win in Test cricket at Dhaka after a 96-run 9th wicket stand between Mark Burgess and Bob Cunis lasted nearly two hours on the final day. The Kiwis began the day at 55/4 with a mere 38-run second innings lead in their hand and were reduced to 101/8. However, the big 9th wicket stand helped them set a target of 184 in 37 overs to the home side.

Pakistan were 51/4 after 15 overs when bad light stopped the play and a minor riot at the venue resulted in the play being abandoned an hour early. With the game concluding in a draw, New Zealand won the 3-match series by a 1-0 margin. The match of the series at Karachi ended in a draw while New Zealand won the Lahore Test by five wickets to take an inaccessible 1-0 lead.

2002 – No Monday Morning Blues for Inzi

On Monday morning at the Harare, Inzamam-ul-Haq became only the 2nd Pakistan player in Test history to score 100 runs in a single session. After Pakistan took a 60-run lead against the home side, they lost two wickets for only 25 runs in the 2nd innings when Inzamam walked out to bat. Taking full advantage of the untidy bowling from the Zimbabwe players, Inzamam completed his century before the Lunch break.

He scored 103 runs in the session while Majid Khan scored 108 runs in the first session of the Test match against New Zealand in 1976/77. Inzamam brought up his century in 102 balls and got out scoring 112 off just 107 balls in the post-lunch session. His innings included a total of 20 boundaries. Pakistan were bowled out for 369 in the 2nd innings setting a target of 430 but Zimbabwe ended up with only 310.