This Day in History: 17th June

Shane Watson was born on this day in 1981

Cricket

1981: Birth of Shane Watson, an Australian right-handed batsman and a right-handed fast medium bowler. He mainly bats as an opener in international cricket, although he does not do so domestically.

1930: Birth of Brian Statham, one of the leading English fast bowlers in 20th century English cricket. 

1999: One of the greatest one-day match in history between Australia and South Africa at Edgbaston in the World Cup semi-final. The match was tied and Australia went through to the final due to better run rate in the earlier stages of the tournament.

2000: West Indies defeated England by an innings in the first Test at Edgbaston. Courtney Walsh took eight wickets, in the process becoming the first man to pass 450 Test wickets.

Football

1990: Birth of Jordan Henderson, an English footballer who plays for Premier League club Liverpool and the England national team as a midfielder.

1997: Arsenal signed the Dutch star Marc Overmars from Ajax.

Tennis

1973: Birth of Leander Paes, an Indian professional tennis player who currently features in the doubles events in the ATP Tour and the Davis Cup tournament.

1980: Birth of Venus Williams, an American professional tennis player who is a former World No. 1 and is ranked World No. 32 in singles as of May 2013.

1985: Birth of Marcos Baghdatis, a Cypriot professional tennis player. He was the runner-up at the 2006 Australian Open and a semifinalist at the 2006 Wimbledon Championships and reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 8 in August 2006.

Boxing

1954: Rocky Marciano beats Ezzard Charles in 15 for Heavyweight boxing title.

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