Agarkar's World Record !!

I am and have always been a big fan of Ajit Agarkar, who is known more for his consecutive ducks against Aussies and to a lesser extent for his part in the Adelaide test victory in Dec 2003, than his all-round skills. And this always disapppointed me since he is more or less the same age as me and I was following Cricket when he made his debut and was the then Irfan Pathan of Indian Cricket. At all his faliures, me and my best friend always used to joke that he is the future of Indian Cricket.

But, beleive it or not, The wicket of opener Nafis Iqbal in first of back-to-back ODIs at Dhaka gave Ajit Agarkar a world record. This was Agarkar’s 200th wicket in shorter version of the game. Having already aggregated 1,049 runs before this match, Agarkar joined the exclusive band of cricketers with the all-round double of 1,000 runs and 200 wickets.

Agarkar was playing his 133rd match and he is now the quickest in terms of number of matches taken to complete this all-round double.The previous record was held by South African Shaun Pollock, who took 138 matches.

Kapil Dev, the only other Indian in this list, was the first player to do so. At 27 years 22 days, Agarkar is also the second youngest after Pakistan’s Wasim Akram who achieved this feat at 26 years 257 days followed by Agarkar.

Not only this, Agarkar also became the quickest among Indians to take 200 wickets. Agarkar accomplished the feat in only 133 matches – 14 matches lesser than Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath, who previously held the record for India. In all ODIs Agarkar is joint fifth fastest with Australia’s Glenn McGrath and after Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq (104), South Africa’s Allan Donald (117),Pakistan’s Waqar Younis (118) and Australia’s Shane Warne (125). And still, Agarkar is treated as the biggest what could have been of Indian Cricket !!