5 Cricket records held by Indian origin players

#5 Bransby Beauchamp Cooper : First Indian-born cricketer to play Test cricket for Australia

The England cricket team which played the first test series in Australia, 1876/77

The grand daddy of India-origin cricket records. Bransby Beauchamp Cooper was a right-hand batsman and wicket-keeper who holds the unique record of being the first Indian-born cricketer to play Test cricket when he played in the first official Test match in Melbourne in 1877 which coincidentally started on his 33rd birthday.

Born on March 15, 1844 in Dhaka in British India (which is now known as Dhaka in Bangladesh), Cooper incidentally also holds the record for being the first Indian origin player to be a member of the Australian Cricket Team. Though he was thought to be named Captain, the honour of captaincy went to Dave Gregory and Cooper could only manage scores of 15 and 3, and took 2 catches. Unfortunately that was the only Test he ever played.

Test cricket was born and with it was born the Indian association towards the Gentleman’s game. In his first-class career, Cooper scored 1600 runs, took 41 catches, and made 20 stumpings.