RAWALPINDI – Pakistan middle-order batter Saud Shakeel has become part of a unique but unwelcome record in Test cricket history, after being dismissed just short of a century in both innings of the Rawalpindi Test against Sri Lanka.
Shakeel scored 93 in the first innings and 97 in the second of the first Test against Sri Lanka, making him the fifth batter in the world to be dismissed in the “nervous nineties” in both innings of the same Test.
In nearly 150 years of Test cricket, this is only the sixth time a batter has been dismissed between 90 and 99 in both innings of a single match.
Four batters have gone through this experience before. Among them, former West Indies great Gordon Greenidge is the only player to whom it has happened twice.
The last batter before Shakeel to suffer this fate was Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene, in August 2009. Against New Zealand in Colombo, he scored 92 in the first innings and 96 in the second, but failed to complete a century on both occasions.
Greenidge first experienced it in March 1977, in the Georgetown Test against Pakistan, when he scored 91 in the first innings and 96 in the second.
Three years later, in February 1980, Greenidge was again dismissed in the nineties in both innings, this time scoring 91 and 97 against New Zealand in the Christchurch Test.
England’s Frank Woolley is also on this unusual list. At Lord’s in June 1921, he scored 95 in the first innings and 93 in the second against Australia.
The first such instance in Test history came in January 1902, when Australia’s Clem Hill missed out on a century in both innings of the Adelaide Test against England.
Hill scored 98 in the first innings and 97 in the second. His total of 195 runs remains the highest among batters dismissed in the nineties in both innings of a Test.
Shakeel scored a total of 190 runs across both innings against Sri Lanka, the second-highest aggregate on this unique list.
