Stats: Ranji Trophy game marks the 60000th match in First-class cricket

The 9th round matches of the Ranji Trophy 2019-20, which is also the last round of the group stage, kick-started on Wednesday which recorded a new milestone in first-class cricket. As many as 17 matches started on the same day but the 10th game turned out to be the 60,000th match in the history of first-class cricket. Until 11th February (Tuesday), as many as 59990 matches took place in FC cricket.

The game between Manipur and Chandigarh at the Videocon Academy Ground in Kolkata was the 10th game in alphabetical order among the 17 games that began on Wednesday. Thus, this Manipur-Chandigarh match went down in the first-class history as the 60000th match. The first-ever first-class match was played between Hampshire and England back in June 1772. The match was scheduled for only two days which Hampshire won by 53 runs.

The milestone matches in first-class cricket of 100th, 500th, 1,000th, 10,000th, 20,000th and 40,000th were all hosted by England only. The West Indies domestic competition was the first to break this spree. The Shell Shield game between Combined Leeward & Windward Islands and Trinidad & Tobago in 1973/74 season was the 30,000th FC match. The game, however, ended in a draw as only 214.1 overs of play was possible.

Leicestershire was the only team to be part of two such milestone matches that too at their home venue in Leicester. They hosted Gloucestershire in the 1953 County match which was the 20,000th first-class match which they won by 4 wickets. Later in the 1992 season, Worcestershire toured Leicestershire which was the 40,000th match in this format. The Leicester team won this match as well by 9 wickets.

Talking about the historic 60,000th FC match, the visitors Chandigarh have got the edge in the game as they posted 352/5 on day one. Manipur managed to reduce them to 136/6 as opening bowler Sheiteendra took four wickets which included sending back skipper Manan Vohra for a duck. However, the former Punjab cricketers, Uday Kaul (145* off 225) and Bipul Sharma (119* off 175) shared an unbeaten 216-run stand for the 6th wicket in 52.5 overs.

Milestone matches in first-class cricket:

(Stats as on February 12, 2020)