5 cricketers who were born after their legendary teammates made their debut
It’s often heard as a rhetoric that Virat Kohli was a little more than a year old when Sachin Tendulkar made his debut for India in 1989. The instances are plenty, and the numbers are fascinating. But how would it be if Tendulkar were to walk up to a player and say, “You weren’t even born when I first played for India.” We look at specific instances where players weren’t even born when their legendary teammate played his debut match.
#1 Ian Peebles (England)
Teammate: Sir Jack Hobbs
It’s not every day that one comes across a bowler who can make the legendary Sir Donald Bradman look fallible. Ian Peebles did just that.
A maverick born in early 1908, Peebles built his reputation on his easy-on-the-eyes leg breaks and undetectable googlies – it is said that could bowl the wrong ‘un without an apparent change in action.
Young Peebles began his journey as a Scot in hot pursuit of his cricketing ambitions. And his travel to England seemed to be all in vain for the initial few years till he landed himself a place in the English side that toured South Africa in 1927.
It was on that tour that an extraordinary episode involving Peebles unfolded during a one-day game against Constantia. Seeing his team batting well, the tailender Peebles thought of taking a dip in the waters with some of the locals. Having lost all sense of time, he returned after a while – only to realise that his team’s innings was over and that he had missed his turn to bat. The following morning, Cape Times declared him ‘absent bathing’ on their score sheet.
Ian Peebles blew hot and cold for the next few years, producing ordinary performances at the international level but stunning everyone in first-class games. In 1930, while playing for the Oxford University, Peebles picked up 70 wickets, including that of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, and made his way back into the country’s team. His subsequent performances earned him the coveted Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1931.
Post retirement, one of the things he did was write on the game he played all his life. His autobiography, Spinner’s Yarn ranks among the best written by a cricketer. In later years, he also published Straight from the Shoulder, one of the earliest and the most authoritative accounts on the problem of chucking that plagued world cricket.