This Day in History: 22nd August

Jonathan Trott

Cricket

2009: Great debut for Jonathan Trott, as he became the 18th Englishman to score a century on debut. In the process, he helped England beat Australia 2-1 in the Ashes.

1897: Birthday of Australian captain Bill Woodfull. He led Australia in the famous body-line series and made the unforgettable statement - “There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket and the other is not.”

2011: England whitewashed India 4-0 in a Test series. India had gone into the series as the No.1 Test team in the world, and suffered one of their most humiliating defeats in recent times.

1896: English county side Gloucestershire were bowled out for only 17 runs by the visiting Australian team, registering one of the lowest first class totals.

1939: England played West Indies at the Oval in what turned out to be the last Test to be played until 1946. A wait of six and a half years, due to World War II.

Tennis

1950: Althea Gibson becomes the first women black competitor in America to enter a national tennis competition.

1964 : Birthday of Mats Wilander of Sweden. He went on to be ranked No.1 in men’s tennis and won seven Grand Slam singles titles in the period between 1982-88.

Baseball

1927: The legendary Babe Ruth hits his 40th out of 60 home runs (in a season) today.

2007: Most runs scored by a team in modern Major League Baseball history. The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles by a margin of 30-3.

Boxing

1957: American Boxing great Floyd Patterson knocks out Pete Rademacher in six rounds for the Heavyweight boxing title.

Do check out the rest of the ‘This day in history’ series.