7 Facts you should know about the very first Test Match

#7 140-year-old Records!

James Southerton – Test cricket’s oldest debutant

Two records still stand from the very first Test match ever played. One involves the lone centurion Bannerman whose score of 165, laced with 18 boundaries and lasting 290 minutes meant that he scored 67.3% of his side’s runs. The record came under severe threat by his compatriot Michael Slater 122 years later, when he scored 123 of Australia’s 184 during the fifth Ashes Test match of 1999.

While statistically speaking, there is a fair possibility of this record getting broken sometime in future, the other record of oldest Test debutant seems to rest permanently with James Southerton – who walked into the first ever Test match to be played, aged 49 years and 119 days.