It's a funny game

OMINOUS OLYMPICS
Cricket has only ever appeared in the Olympic games twice. The first time was in 1896 in Athens; however, there were not enough teams to truly compete so the competition never occurred. Once again, in 1900, cricket made a reappearance in the Paris Olympics but only 2 teams were able to compete: Great Britain and France. The winner, Great Britain, received the gold medal.

FIRST FACE-OFF
Geoff Boycott was the first cricketer to face a ball one-day cricket history. Graham McKenzie was the bowler.

BORROWED CENTURY
Shahid Afridi’s epic 1996 37-ball century, the fastest in one-day history at the time, was actually scored off Waqar Younis’ borrowed bat!

MANKAD MADNESS
There is a special style of dismissal known as the Mankad and it is named after Indian bowler Vinod Mankad. It involves the running out of the non-striking batsman when he leaves his crease by the bowler before the ball has been delivered. Vinod used this method often, instead of warning the batsman as was custom at the time, so the name stuck.

TV WICKETS
In 1992, Sachin Tendulkar became the first ever batsman to be run out after the third umpire consulted TV replays. Jonty Rhodes was the fielder. The next day, in the same test match, Rhodes was run out in the exact same way by Sachin. Talk about tit for tat!

LONG-LASTING BATTERY POWER
West Indian fast bowler Courtney Walsh was nicknamed Duracell for his ability to bowl extremely long spells.

SYDNEY MAGIC
After scoring 277 runs at the SCG in 1993 vs. Australia Brian Lara named his own daughter Sydney!

STUMPED BY A WHACKO WICKET
English shepherds, considered to be the first to discover cricket, used to play in front of a tree stump. Hence the origins of the term "stump." As the game progressed, they moved to sometimes playing in front of a wicket-gate, which led to the term “wicket" being coined.